Interview with Sara W. Robinson

SARA ROBINSON
Harford Living Treasure
Hello, this is Doug Washburn, for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 29 October 2003, and I'm with one of Harford's Living Treasures, Sara Robinson of Whiteford. Born just above the Mason Dixon line, Mrs. Robinson has lived in Harford County for more than sixty years. Mrs. Robinson's nomination was made by, June Atkin. Mrs. Robinson, thank you for taking time with me today and for sharing your memories for our county citizens to enjoy. Welcome.
SR Thank you.
DW [Laughs] So, I know you were born in Pennsylvania, but, where and when?
SR I was born just over the line, just north of Delta, about a mile, on April 8, 1921. I'm the oldest, eldest of a family of five children. My father and mother were… No one knew him, his right name, they called him Babe. Babe and Nell Wiley. And he was a handicapped man. He had… He is a man to be admired in many, many ways. He raised a family of five children. He owned three farms, and he was a, he was a go-getter. With all his, his leg was off at his hip, he could do anything, but run. And, if you got in trouble, and he said, "come here", you better go, because it was going to be worse if he caught up with you. [Laughter]
DW Now you said a mile north of Delta.
SR Uh huh.
DW Is that still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes.
DW That all is, still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes, well really over the hill. Takes it's a mile to get there, but it's just over the hill where I was born. My mother taught school at Mount Holly.
DW Oh.
SR And I don't know whether that's when she met my dad, or not. But a, she met him and she has two pupils who are still living, Dorothy Kilgore, and Betty Griffith. And not long ago they told me that they were in first grade…Am I talking o.k?
DW Oh yes, fine.
SR They were in first grade and at Christmas time they had a, they use to have little entertainments, Christmas entertainments?
DW Uh huh.
SR And they all gathered at the school, of course, for a Christmas entertainment. And my mother never showed up. The next day they found out that my father had been in an accident and had his leg taken off and she had gone to Philadelphia. Well in those days, there were no telephones, you had no lighting, you had no way of communicating.
DW Right.
SR And they didn't find out until the next day.
DW [Laughs] So did your, did your family, your mom and dad; did they always live on the Pennsylvania side?
SR Oh, yes.
DW O.k.
SR My dad was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k.
SR His, my father was Babe Wiley.
DW Um hum.
SR And all his family settled in Peach Bottom Township. In fact they call it Wiley Hollow, down near Valley School.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That's where, that's where he was born and reared.
DW So that wouldn't be too far from Mount Nebo Church.
SR No, no.
DW Just across the road.
SR But then he moved. Now, then they moved to the top of the Forge Hill which was in Lower Chanceford Township.
DW Ah.
SR Just over. But, I was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k. But you went to school in Lower Chanceford.
SR In Lower Chanceford.
DW: O.k. Cause I've seen you had a lot of the…
SR Oh, yes.
DW community hall activities where you have the photos of Lower Chanceford.
SR Uh huh. Well, I just got my certificates out. I never missed a day of school in my life.
DW Oh, wow! [Laughs]
SR In fact I have two, I had two brothers and two sisters. None of us ever missed a day until my youngest brother was to graduate, and one month before he graduated, he got the measles.
DW [Laughs]
SR We had a record up until then. My mother figured how many thousands of lunches she had packed.
DW [Laughs]
SR Cause we went to a one-room school. We went, they took, I went by horse. I went by… We had an old sleigh. I remember my dad taking us to school in a Bobsled, over the fences when the snow was deep. Then we graduated to a, the first one, we called it the dogcart. It was a, like a small truck with wire on the sides and leather came down. Then, the next one I remember we called it the bread wagon. It looked like a bread wagon. [Laughter] And it was very dangerous. It had a bench in the middle where the kids sat on the, the boys sat on the bench and the girls on the side. And then they went from that to an old hearse. I mean it was, see we didn't have buses then.
DW Mm hmm.
SR You just whatever, and people, local people took the children to school. So, it was interesting. [Laughs]
DW So, what brought you to Harford County side?
SR Well, of course when I got married. I met Charlie and we were married in May, May 3, 1941. And I moved to Cardiff. At the time I was working in Harrisburg for the medical and dental boards where we licensed doctors and dentists. And at that time the refugee doctors were coming to this country. They had no credentials. They had a terrible time. They'd come to our office and we'd help them get their credentials and get things lined up for them. It was a very interesting, very interesting work, place to work, too.
DW Hmm.
SR Anyhow, we were married May 3, 1941, at Slate Ridge Church. And we did that because he was going to be drafted, and we decided to get married before he was drafted. And of course we could get a three-day license in Maryland, where Pennsylvania took you two weeks.
DW Ah.
SR So that was one of those quickies. [Laughter]
DW So now when you say Slate Ridge Church, this would be the one that's on Main Street.
SR In Cardiff.
DW In, right next to the Mason Dixon Line.
SR Right. That's right.
DW O.k., so…
SR Slate Ridge Presbyterian Church.
DW Mmm hmm. Right. So um, when you got married, you quit working in Harrisburg?
SR I quit working in Harrisburg after I gave them a couple months notice. I couldn't quit right way.
DW Right.
SR Because I hated to walk out. But, I came back to, we came to Cardiff and we started housekeeping in a little apartment in Cardiff. And Straley Greer was our bookkeeper at Robinson Brothers. He was leaving and they asked me to take his place, so I went to work at Robinson Brothers when I came home.
DW Ah.
SR And that was the, really the last… Well I worked until our oldest daughter was born. Carole was born August 1942.
DW So, your husband already had an established business when you got married?
SR Oh yes. Oh yes.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR Robinson Brothers. Robinson Brothers began with his father in 1916, and then he had his brother, Uncle Arthur, we call him. He came in with him a couple of years and Robinson Brothers had been there since that time, 1916, bought the old Gailey building. And Charlie went to, graduated from Slate Ridge School, and went to the University of Maryland. And, there's a story to that. On his 21st birthday, he was a senior, on his 21st birthday he came home and said to his dad, "I'm not going back to school." His father wanted him to be a doctor and he was in a pre-med course. And Charlie did not want to be a doctor. So he came home and started with Robinson Brothers. He was there ever since. [Laughter]
DW Now that would be the building that burned not too long ago.
SR Yes. Mmm hmm.
DW Last year or so.
SR Yes, last Christmas. Last Christmas.
DW O.k., that was…
SR That was an old, old building, and a, and a firetrap too. There was no doubt about that. But, that's where they had their business. And then they had, down at the railroad station, the Cardiff Station, is where the feed mill was.
DW O.k.
SR And…
DW So we're…
SR Pa Adams…
DW So we're right at the intersection of Dooley Road and Main Street.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW And the Robinson Brother building would have been just on the north side.
SR That's right.
DW And the train station would have been just on the south side.
SR Yes, going down, what's that road? Dooley Road.
DW Dooley Road. O.k.
SR Dooley Road, just right at the railroad tracks. Because they had a siding where they brought in molasses and feed and of course they dropped the mail off. When the train was operating, that's where the mail was dropped off. And Charlie, as a boy, at one time carried the mail from that station up to the post office. And I think one of the last ones when they quit, was Grover Snodgrass. In fact, I know he was. He use to pick up the mail and take it up to the post office. That's where they dropped it off.
DW So, the business, was feed?
SR We had, well they were International Harvester dealers.
DW O.k., so…
SR That was at the main building. Not only that, they handled New Holland, Ontario Drills, oh golly, you name it, I think they handled it. Everything, but John Deere.
DW [Laughs]
SR We were International dealers. And then the feed business was down in the old, well we always called it the Old Cardiff Station. And they manufactured, and they had a Robinson Brothers Feed that they put up. It supplied the farmers. And Mr. Jamison Adams was our millman; lived in Cardiff. And he's Jerry Baxter's grandfather.
DW [Laughs]
SR And he was, he was our millman. He had one arm, and did a, lifted bags. I've seen him pick up a bag with his arm and that hook and it was the heaviest, I mean it was something else. He had a hook on his arm.
DW [Laughs]
SR But he was a wonderful person.
DW Hmm.
SR A really nice person.
DW So um, how long was it Robinson Brothers? I mean for…
SR Well, it was Robinson Brothers when Charles's father died in, (what year was that), 1947. And Charlie of course then went into business as a partner. And his Uncle Arthur was the other partner. And then they continued to operate until 1979. Well, Uncle Arthur died, and then Joe came into business as a partner, his son Joe. And then 1979, after the boys had graduated from college, they decided to combine with Manifolds of New Park. So, they sold everything. Now Charlie and Joe were getting to the point, you know near retirement, and the boys were going to take over. Well, they decided to try it for ten years. And they tried it for ten years, and at that time, you don't remember I'm sure, but I do. International Harvester went on strike, everything, the economy kind of bottom went out of it. So the boys stayed at M&R for ten years, and they went out. They were both college graduates, and they decided to use their education. So they gave up and went out and let somebody else have the worries.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it was, it was a real worry then.
DW Hmm.
SR Well, you were getting into the time when dealers were going, combining, getting big, big, big. They would have gotten big, but who wants the headaches?
DW Right.
SR That's what it was, it really was. We use to thank the Lord every time we went by that place that they had gotten out of it.
DW Hmm.
SR It was rough.
DW Well what did the, what did the building become later, in the later years, closer to the time when it burned?
SR Robinson Brothers building?
DW Yeah. What it…
SR Oh my gosh it had most everything in there. Somebody had an office there, and what else did they do? [pause] Other than…Sam Jones, Sam Jones used it for storage. Sam Jones owned it, bought it, and I don't remember that it became anything except a little office here and there. And then when, I don't even know who bought it in the end, who had it. I really don't cause it… We never used… we used the first floor. The second floor was loaded with antiques, things I own. You know, this came out of…[Laughter] from, from the mill.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Ah, and people stored things, you know, they had extra furniture and that type thing. But other than that, they had a, they had a, it was a, it was a good supply for the farmers and a lot of big… they supplied the whole northern area of Harford County and York County, southern York County.
DW So the, the place where you set up housekeeping, is that still there?
SR Where I, where Charlie and I went?
DW Yes.
SR Yeah. Where we, we went to, we moved into a little apartment over Proctor's Store which was on the corner where Bill Proctor and, Earl and Zilla Proctor lived there. The store was on this one side and the, Earl and Zilla lived in the other side, and they turned the second floor into an apartment. That's where we started housekeeping.
DW Mmm hmm. Now that would have been?
SR 1941.
DW And that was the building that um, Sebrings Hardware's was in there later years?
SR: No, no. No, no.
DW Wrong building.
SR It's up on the corner near Dave Glenn's dental office.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That was Proctor's store on that corner. Where, where the one next to us where Sebring's were. That was the Sidwell Hardware Store.
DW Oh, o.k. Well, I…
SR Sidwell's had been there for years, were there for years and years.
DW O.k. Well, that's what I got confused about because…
SR Now, now…
DW I know Harvey Proctor Sidwell. [Laughs]
SR Yeah right, right, right.
DW O.k.
SR Yeah. Anyhow, we lived, we were in Cardiff. We never, I never left Pennsylvania. I voted in Maryland my first time. I was twenty-one years old.
DW Mmm.
SR Of course we could vote, couldn't vote until we were twenty-one.
DW So, um after the apartment, next…
SR Well then, we had, we decided we'd move up the street. Al Peale was manager at Green Marble. And he lived in a double house that belonged to Frank Day's mother, and we moved, when they moved out. Al left the company. I don't know what changes were made, whether he retired or what. But anyhow, he left, so we rented where they lived. And moved, Frank Day's mother owned it. She lived next door. So we went to housekeeping there and again we moved, that was another move that we made. And then in 1940…
DW Now, is that double still there?
SR Yes. That house is still there.
DW Um hmm.
SR I don't know, I don't know who lives there anymore.
DW O.k.
SR In 1947, Charlie's father passed away. His mother had died in 1946; they were young. She was only fifty-two, and his father was only fifty-seven. And, of course, Charlie was an only child, so we moved into their house, and we lived there thirty, thirty-some years, that we lived in Cardiff altogether, which was about thirty-three years. So that is where we lived.
DW Now, I, I, in the write-up that Mrs. Atkin did, there was a reference to a tunnel from the Green Marble running under your house. Any…
SR Tunnel?
DW Yeah.
SR I don't remember that.
DW No tunnels. O.k.
SR It might have, Charlie may have know about that. I don't remember any tunnel. No, I don't even recall that.
DW O.k.
SR I don't know where she got that information.
DW O.k. [Laughter] Anything about, anything about the Green Marble Company that you remember?
SR Well, of course the Green Marble Company was there for the whole time that we lived there. Golly, many a nights you would hear the water running and the grinding. See they polished the stone at night. Those machines ran all night long. Well, probably ran twenty-four hours a day.
DW Right.
SR But, I think the biggest memory I have of that is warning our kids never to go near the Green Stone Quarry. Cause for years there was nothing around it.
DW Yeah, it's all fenced now.
SR Now it's fenced.
DW To keep you out.
SR Oh my, I looked over the board fence one time, looked down, and whoever was in the bottom looked like a little, little tiny dot almost.
DW [Laughs]
SR Well, three hundred and some feet down.
DW Right. Now that, I was doing some research on the area one time and actually I think it was your son, Donny…
SR Donny
DW that told me that right where the Green Marble Company is, was called Mine Hill in the old days.
SR Mine, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR Yeah, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR And when you were talking about the, talking to Don, Gary and Mervin took the water out, drew the water out of the old quarry. And they went down. Gary took Don down in that bucket. I didn't know this until afterwards. Thank goodness I didn't.
DW [Laughs]
SR And Don said, now the tunnel went back under what we called south, not south, Gobbler's Knob, the tunnel from the marble. He said it was like a huge green marble cathedral.
DW Oh.
SR Back in there. And it went, there's a big vein of it, I'm sure. But you know, you know exactly the reason why they can't get it out anymore. It's, number one the water filled up the hole, and number two the old marble polishers…Melvin Cantler was the last one who worked for Green Marble, and that could do that kind of work. Now there, there, I think there are marble people around over the country. But this was Green Marble's problem. No one wanted to work in it, and, and there was no sale. I mean, the green marble is used all over the United States, you know that.
DW Right.
SR Smithsonian, and Don just, there was an article in this past Sunday paper about it being in Constitution Hall, a piece of the marble. It's in the last Sunday's Sun Paper.
DW Right.
SR So, I cut it out and gave it to him, or I'd show it to you.
DW Right.
SR And it was used, well you can go into a lot of buildings and find it.
DW Empire State Building, I think has some…
SR Yes, it has it. And, let's see, and the Congressional Library, I think it has some.
DW Yeah.
SR Just various places and you go around, around here you'll find banks that have counters. Well look out at Forest Hill. They have green marble there. A gentleman called me and wanted to know what marble was worth.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, "I can't tell you what marble is worth." If you go to a sale and you buy a piece of marble and you get it for five hundred dollars, that's what it's worth. [Laughter] You can't put a price on it.
DW Right.
SR It's like our slate clock in Delta. You can't put a price on that clock.
DW Right.
SR And it's amazing how, you know what determines the price of something.
DW Sure. How much money you got that day.
SR Yeah, right. I have, see I have that marble top. I have one downstairs, a round one. I wouldn't take a thousand dollars.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR See, that to me, that's what there're worth. [Laughs]
DW Now just for our listeners now, Gobbler's Knob is the little hill there where Tom Super Thrift was, Whiteford Enterprise, that..
SR Well, yeah.
DW that section.
SR All those houses along that side going down, coming in toward the Green Marble.
DW Right.
SR That was called Gobbler's Knob.
DW Right. There's actually an alley back there called Green Stone…
SR Yeah, Mmm hmm.
DW Lane or something.
SR And then of course the lane goes by, goes through, and then goes by one of the oldest houses in the area where Marshall Heaps, Heaps Oil Company is. That's one of the oldest houses and then the next one up is where Mr. Joe Johnson lived. It's another old house back in there.
DW Hmm.
SR And they lived there for years. They were original Welsh constructed.
DW Yeah. Now that's the, the building where Heaps Oil is.
SR Uh huh.
DW That's a double.
SR That's a double.
DW But that's not the double that you lived in.
SR No, no, no.
DW O.k.
SR No, no, no. We lived, our home was on the corner, actually where Green Stone Marble, Green Marble Road comes up, comes out, and then hits Main Street. And we were just next to what use to be old Southern States and then became the Post Office.
DW Hmm.
SR And there was Proctor's store. Proctor, Bill Proctor, well his father and mother had it first. Then he had it, and then we came on down…see Doctor Wilhelm's little building was built after, really after I, we left there. Then I'm going into town now.
DW Right.
SR And there was another store where Mattie Amoss, now Mattie Amoss was Mattie Dooley. And her husband had a store there. And next to them was Gus Lacky who had a barbershop. Now I'm still going down the street, cause we lived on the opposite side of the street. And then, let's see, Myrtle Fox, and then where the apartment building that belonged to Dick Heaps. There were several, oh I can remember Marguerite Wilson had a beauty shop there, and there were various things. It's still there. And then of course the next building is the Masonic Building. That's on Main Street. And Masonic, Masons always met upstairs, but the bottom part had apartments in it, there were two apartments down there. And then you go on down the street a little farther and you came to the Grimms Hotel. It's the only place that I remember that you had, that they had beer in Harford, in Northern, in Cardiff.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Now that's been a good many years ago.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then of course Dick Heaps' place was next, the Ford agency. And then there was a little store, ___________ Dunlap had, ____________ and Grant Dunlap. It was a little store, just a little building. It's gone now.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That was between the Heaps building and the Dooley building. And the Dooley building, of course, was built right on the line. As a matter of fact, I guess it would be all right if I say this, the line went through the office. And Mr. Dooley kept his desk in Maryland because the taxes were cheaper in Maryland then they were in Pennsylvania.
DW [Laughs]
SR Now that's the story, they might not like it, but that was the truth that went around. And here, another thing, the line went through our feed building. And our meters and everything were in Maryland. We had Maryland licenses on our trucks because we had a Cardiff, Maryland address.
DW Right.
SR Well, about a year before we closed up, or two years before we closed up a State Trooper stopped one of the truck drivers, and I don't know how it came about, but found out that we were, our trucks were being housed in Pennsylvania but had Maryland licenses.
DW [Laughs]
SR So they had to spend about two thousand dollars to go, change the license. [Laughter] So you see that's what the line…I would just love to take my foot and just wipe it out.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it's a community, we are a community. And that's the way we should work. I was really disturbed over the fire company breaking off. It was always Delta Cardiff.
DW Right.
SR Always.
DW Right.
SR And we didn't care where the fires were. You went to help no matter what.
DW Right.
SR So, now it's a little bit like a Union, you know, you don't…
DW [Laughs]
SR You can't go from one Union to the other, you do your in trouble, I mean to help somebody. [Laughs]
DW Right. Anything else coming down Main Street? Uh…
SR Yeah.
DW We're coming south?
SR Yeah, we're coming south and we're on, I guess you would call it the north side.
DW O.k.
SR Coming in from Main Street. On the opposite side if we go, let's see, we can't back up. We lived on the opposite side of the street almost across, kind of catty-cornered from the Masonic Building. And then two doors down from us your Uncle Mac had a Barber Shop in later years.
DW Right. And that was an old post office too, wasn't it?
SR Yes, well, it was a post office.
DW Right?
SR Yeah, a post office after he left. Yeah.
DW Hmm.
SR He was, he was there first. Cause he did the boy's hair the first time.
DW [Laughs]
SR I made him take his white jacket off because they were scared to death with anybody, with any one who had a white jacket.
DW [Laughs]
SR So he took his jacket off and they had no problem, because they thought he was a doctor. [Laughter] And then on down the street a couple houses where Doctor Arthur practiced. Now that was Helen Heap's father, and he, in fact he even delivered me. And he'd been around a long time. And then you came on down the street and the next building would have been the old theater. And you don't remember that. The old Delta Cardiff Theater and underneath, it was two stories, and of course I went there as a kid. The other one was only open on weekends, the one that was in Delta. This was open, you know, through the week. Oh, I use to love to go. Mr. Joe Johnson ran the video, what do you call it…
DW The movie.
SR Movie, and showed that. And some time would help him was a Mr. Whittaker, I can't think of his first name from up in Delta. But anyway, underneath was the first, the Cardiff homemakers had a little library in one corner. I don't know who was there before. Next is where Doctor Hunt first began his practice.
DW Mmm hmm. This is, this is what became Reese's Pool Hall?
SR: No.
DW No?
SR This is next to Reeses…
DW: Oh, next to the pumpkin…
SR The pool hall was there too. I'll get to that.
DW O.k., o.k.
SR He was in one end, then was Dick Reese's Pool Hall, and then was a restaurant that Ethel and Smoker Norris ran.
DW Oh. [Laughs]
SR And I can't think of what, who was with her. It was Pat Kilgore's mother and I can't think what her name was. It'll come to me after a while. They had a nice restaurant there.
DW Mmm.
SR You'd come out of the movies and go in. You could get a hamburger for a quarter.
DW [Laughs]
SR You could get a sundae for fifteen cents, you could get a coke for a nickel. A hot dog was probably ten or fifteen cents, and a meal, thirty-five cents. If you paid fifty cents, you were paying a lot.
DW [Laughs] Now, that library you were talking about, it's just been in the last month that somebody had a book that had a stamp. And I think it was actually called the Mason-Dixon Library, wasn't it?
SR I think the Cardiff Homemakers first, I mean it was a lone library that they had. You know they weren't associated with anyone.
DW O.k.
SR And then I don't know where it advanced from there, except we always said that that's where it had it's beginning. Because the next time, next thing we had was the book mobile. And that was, we didn't get that until about 1943, 4, somewhere around there. Dorothy Glackin started that. And that was the first service, library service that we had in the community. Dorothy was a wonderful librarian. She started libraries in schools and of course she had the bookmobile, and there were just several things that she was innovative with and had gotten started. Well, then they had started building libraries. They built Bel Air. The first library was in the old Methodist Church in Bel Air, near Harrison's store, there was an old Methodist Church.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I took Carol there when she was just a little girl. It would have been about 1943.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then they built a library, and then from then it expanded. And of course I have been interested in libraries all my life, and I love to read. And eventually, I don't know how I got on the Board; I didn't know anything about it. I served twelve years on the Harford County Library Board. And while I was there, I started agitating for something in the upper end of the county. Well, I went to a capital, we had a meeting one day and they brought out this capital plan, and here was a picture of, a drawing of Harford County. And here were all these libraries they were going to build down the southern end of the county, and there was nothing up in the fourth and fifth district. And I jumped up and slammed the paper down on the table and I said "You don't have anything up here."
DW [Laughs]
SR So they said well, now they had a committee, well, we said we'd look around. Well, it took us several years before we found a place that we could have a library. We had, we tried the schools, but we were five years too late. We thought maybe we could have one next to the school, or near the school, or incorporated in the school. We were five years too late because their plans were already made.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So anyhow, I kept agitating away, and I'd go to the council meetings, and Johnny Schaefer would say, "Must be something coming up about libraries tonight."
DW [Laughs]
SR I just kept on and on. Took us twenty-five years to get a library, but we got it finally. And it all happened almost, it was just a quirk. Eunice Silver wanted to sell this piece of property. Now that's out in Whiteford. It's a piece of property between her and the Whiteford Post Office area. And I found out about it, and I knew Frank Day, her lawyer. And I got a hold of Frank and I said, "Frank that would make a wonderful library." And of course Paul Glackin had, was the, what do ya call, realtor who had it. And I talked to Paul; well they talked to Eunice, and it took us a while. Went to the…I'll never forget going to the office; Eunice called me every morning of her life.
DW [Laughs]
SR Thinking, well aren't you going to do something? Well, you know things don't move very fast.
DW Right.
SR And I happened, I was working for the York Daily Record at the time, and use to cover the farm bureau meetings. And they were meeting down at the Blue Bell. I had gone a little early, and Charlie Anderson walked in. And he said, "Well hi Mrs. Robinson, you gotten that library up in Whiteford yet"?
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said how in the heck can we get a library in Whiteford if we can't even get ten cents to get an option on the land. He said, "What are you talking about"? I said well there's a piece of land up there that we could get, that would make a nice library if we could get, you know, the money or get… You had to go through, what's the name of that? Bill Cooper was Chairman of it, some kind of a committee, anyhow, that you had to go through. He said, "Call my office the next morning." I'm not kidding you, right hand up; I did not sleep all night long.
DW [Laughs]
SR I got up and I called his office and he turned me over to Roger Niles. And I talked to Roger and I said, "Now I'm calling Frank Day and I want you two to get together," because Frank was her lawyer. They got together and Roger says, "Well I think we can come up with some money for that." She didn't ask a big amount for it, because Bill Cooper said to me, I can't think of the name of that group that meets, that decides whether they're going to buy. But anyway, he looked at me, and he said, "You tell that woman, "Thank you for not trying to rip us off."
DW [Laughs]
SR And I'll never forget it! He got it, we got it before, because Fallston came up the same time, and they approved us, that we could go ahead and get this land and then put a, they put a trailer there.
DW Yes.
SR Well that went on for a number of years and the next thing I found out that they had taken us off the Capital Improvement Plan. The Board.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And boy I got a group together and we started, and we just kept right on until, and we went to every meeting, and they knew we were there. Am I talking too long?
DW No, no, you're doing fine.
SR All right. They, I have to tell you this story. They a, we kept going to the Board Meetings and going to the Board Meetings. And, how'd this come about? Oh, I know. I said something to the Director, and he says, "Well we don't have any money." And I went right across the street to Habern Freeman's office and asked to see him. And we had met with him before; a group of us had gone down. And I said Habern; "They say we don't have the money for our library. And he said, "You do have your money; it's there." I went right back to the Director.
DW [Laughs]
SR And said the money is there and had been there for six months.
DW Wow!
SR And then he got, well see at that time they let the Director, I mean the Director had a lot to do with it. And he was just… I don't know why he was dragging his feet. But we did get organized. But then it was like Murphy's Law. We got, we had to take the lowest contract, you know, bid I mean.
DW Yeah.
SR And everything went wrong that could go wrong with that library. It took two years to build.
DW [Laughs]
SR But thank goodness we have it! [Laughs]
DW Yes, yes.
SR I have, I've always been of the belief that there isn't an entity of any kind that you get more money for your taxes, than you do in a library.
DW Right.
SR And the fact that it also serves from the tiniest child, even to prenatal [laughs] children before there're born, to the oldest person.
DW Right.
SR So, when you think of that, your getting, you're really getting the benefit of your tax money. I have no idea what the cost is now. It use to be, and they probably will correct me on that, but it's around fifty dollars, maybe more of your tax money that goes to libraries.
DW Mmm.
SR And I can't think of a better, better place to put your money, [laughs] your tax money.
DW Right. Well, certainly it's a good place for kids, they get educated…
SR Oh…
DW They are not out getting in trouble…
SR That's right.
DW Reduces the cost of police…
SR Everything.
DW You know, I mean it's just a big cycle.
SR Well, I organized, and I got a little help from a person in Bel Air who had had this experience, organized the Friends up here before we had the library. And we started out with the Friends of the Library, and we have raised and given, I would say, well we still have some money. We haven't given all of it. But I would say about $75,000.
DW Wow.
SR Just through our Friends, through the little, or you know the little fundraisers that we have. And we have given…now this past year we supported five programs. Summer Readings Programs cost us a thousand dollars.
DW Hmm.
SR And we can't think of anything better of a use for our money. We helped, they needed shelving, you know…This is not funded. These are things that are not funded, that the County can't give them. So, we gave, let's see, we gave five hundred, it was around five hundred for this new shelving. Plus we're also going to sponsor the Adult Reading Program this winter. So that will be another…And then every once in a while we'll come up with something. For instance we just had a, memorials made for a couple people in the community. And we have over a thousand dollars and they suggested that we get talking books and large print. Which is what we try to keep a supply in; they use a lot of them. So we'll give about fifteen hundred dollars to the Board and that will, we indicate that it's to be used on talking books and large print books.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I am using large print books too. [Laughter] I hear some other people are. Oh…
DW O.k., so we went, we went north, we went north in Cardiff.
SR O.k.
DW On the Main Street.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW Back the other side?
SR Alright.
DW Or maybe south through Whiteford?
SR Lets see. Now lets come back to Whiteford. I had, well we had the Green Marble. We'd gone through that, you know. And I had mentioned Al Peale, Al Peale was the manager when I came, and then Glen Birley took his place. And I think Glen was there when it finally closed down. It was owned by some company, up in the New England states. I don't know. But, the green marble is a beautiful marble. There's just no question about it.
DW Right.
SR And they claim, it's not the only green marble, but it's the only green marble of that color. Some of its dark, you can go, you'll see some of its dark. When you look at it, you know it didn't come from Cardiff.
DW Mmm hmm. [Laughs]
SR You can almost tell. And, alright lets get back to…We're going through, after we leave the Green Marble and there at the Green Marble we had this… Southern States had a building which became the Post Office. And I think now its an apartment building. Coming on out through Cardiff at the top of the hill, Slate Ridge School on the left. And then, I helped organize the first PTA that they had.
DW Oh yeah?
SR Yeah. They didn't have, Mr. Samsel ran every thing, and he didn't like the PTA, I guess.
DW [Laughs]
SR I don't know what else. But anyhow, Luther Heaps and I did that. And then coming on out through Whiteford, somebody said, told me that there was a little candy store on the right. I don't, I think Townsley's had it but I don't, it wasn't there very long. And then you came to Glasgow and McKinley Garage. And that's where… Well I don't know what's there now. Koermer, Chris Koermer had something there in that building.
DW O.k.
SR Then next to that was Russ McKinley's barbershop.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And then you came on to Reamer's Store. I can tell you a little tale about it… You didn't…
DW Which, which today is the Post Office.
SR Which today is the Post Office. Yeah.
DW O.k.
SR Hank Reamer was the owner of it. Hank and Gus, his brother. I don't know if he was there much or not anyhow. But anyway, I didn't deal there because I dealt mostly in Delta. And I was very active in the North Harford PTA and of course I was always one to go around to get ads for this and ads for that. So one day I walked in and he was there and he looked up and he said, "Well how much do you want today"? [Laughter] So you knew, I wasn't a customer, but he knew I was looking for money. And then, that kind of, a little bell went off and thought do I have a reputation like that? [Laughter] O.k. So, then we came onto, after Reamer's Store, was the, the Whiteford Post Office. It was in that little white building.
DW Oh yeah.
SR There's a house in between, and there on the corner was the Whiteford Post Office.
DW O.k.
SR Now I don't know how many years it was there. Someone seemed to think it was in Bull's store at one time, but I don't recall that. All I know is, because Charlie's aunt was the Post Mistress—Alice Davis. And then you went on to the, across the corner where, not where the bank is setting, but on the corner was Bull's Store. You've heard them talk about Bull's Store, haven't you?
DW Yes. Uh huh.
SR O.k. They had a fountain there. And I can remember Bull's Store well.
DW Mmm.
SR And then of course after that then Tom Sueter built the pharmacy…
DW Pharmacy.
SR across, across the road.
DW Right.
SR We miss that little place, cause I am almost sure, I'm trying to remember, it seems they had a fountain, a soda fountain in there, too. I'm not sure. And then going on through Whiteford…I don't remember, I know the telephone, there's a little building there where the…
DW Yep.
SR telephone had…
DW Still is.
SR Is it still the same thing?
DW Still there. Mmm hmm.
SR O.k. And then of course you came to your Church on the left. And then you went on down, and I'll never forget as long as I live, Staso Milling.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I was at the fire the night it burned. And it was during the war. Charlie was in the service and Charlie's dad picked me up and we went to the fire. And that burned the Staso Milling down. And of course they never opened up after that.
DW Right.
SR But that was in…(Can you cut that off a minute, I have…)
DW Sure. Let's take a break. Hang on just a second.
DW: O.K. We're back after our break.
SR Oh, I remember, I remember the Ma & Pa, you know the railroad going through, of course passed through Delta and Cardiff and Whiteford, and on down the valley. You can still see where it traveled out here and into Pylesville. And at Pylesville they had a creamery station. One of the oldest creameries. And Robinson Brothers used to go down every morning and they had a little section of it where they, they'd take orders from the farmers or they could sell feed or whatever. They use to go down every day. The first ride I had on the Ma & Pa Railroad was from Cardiff to Pylesville to pick up a car. [Laughter] But then in Pylesville there was a store and before Lanius, I don't know who was there before Lanius, but I know that Walter Pruitt was there when it closed up. And then, let's see what else was in. They had, of course I mentioned the creamery. That was quite a station where they… It was a huge, brick milk station. It is a… I have a friend who's writing another book and he's getting all this information on, on milking, you know, where they took the milk cans. That's where they took the milk in. Well, I tell ya… You've heard this story in The Morning Milking—the book that Linda Morris wrote and Dave DeRan.
DW Oh, yeah.
SR Well, this horse that they had, "Old Dan", went… They drove him to the Pylesville milk station. And Kenny, of course, lived over here. Kenny's father was Walter Morris. And Eleanor called me one day and she said, "Sarah, did your"…She says, "You know "Old Dan"… He was in the book. It told the story of him going down… Well first let me back up. Kenny went in to get his breakfast one morning and he left "Old Dan" with the cart, milk, what do you call them? Milk wagon.
DW Milk wagon.
SR Setting out at the end of the walk. Well, when he went in and slammed the door, "Old Dan" took off and just moseyed on down to the Pylesville Station and…
DW [Laughs]
SR he got down and there was a line of people waiting to go, get rid of the milk. He just walked right up with them, just as if he was in line.
DW [Laughs]
SR Well, Eleanor called me and she said, " Sarah, Kenny's father bought that horse from your dad. Did your dad train him?" He was really a trained horse. And I said, "No, but I know where the horse came from." He belonged to my Uncle Will who was a crippled man. Uncle Will, as a young boy, fell from the top of the barn and broke his back, and could never walk after that. And he trained this horse to kneel, and I've seen him do it. I was just a little kid. And he'd climb up on his neck and get on his back. He had him trained that if he whistled… There was a balcony on their home, and he'd walk out of the balcony, on the balcony, or walk out. He crawled out, and would drop down on the horse's back.
DW [Laughs]
SR And this was "Old Dan".
DW Oh, wow.
SR And that was, he had some age on him. But I remember him so well. And Uncle Will had two horses in his time, and this was one of them.
DW [Laughs]
SR So "Old Dan" knew how to go. He had gone so many times and Kenny said, one time he said well when he slammed the door… Of course that was an indication you know that Kenny was coming out of the house after his breakfast, so he figured he was… [Laughter] he was coming, and he took off. I always thought that was the neatest story…
DW Right.
SR to tell about, to tell about a horse. Anyway, the Pylesville Station was there until the train stopped coming.
DW Now there was a sawmill there too, wasn't there?
SR Yes, afterwards.
DW Uh, o.k.
SR After, after they… Yes there was a sawmill there, but I don't remember who ran it.
DW Wasn't it Day? I think it was Days.
SR Was that who it was?
DW I think so.
SR I don't remember who ran it. But that was after the milking station was there.
DW Now the old…
SR Creamery they called it.
DW Right. The old stone trestle, I mean the track was still there at this time.
SR Oh yeah. That trestle hasn't been gone that long. I remember… I don't remember when they took it away. I know one time I called the State Department or County Department, or whoever had charge of the road. See, we went down through Old Pylesville Road and around the corner. And then when you went around under the trestle, there was a bank and there were no guardrails.
DW Right.
SR So I called and I said, "Did you ever stop to think that a bus could go over there, could go right over that railing?" By golly, they weren't long putting guardrails up. And it was dangerous.
DW There was an old house right next to the trestle there.
SR Yeah, that's where Annie Watkins lives.
DW Yes. Is that…
SR Steve Cox, Steve Cox is her son-in-law.
DW Any history of the house that you know of?
SR No, I have no idea about the house. Even the one up on the bank is an old house. Now this whole area was settled by Pyles, and that could be… I have never gotten the history of that house. Now this, the old mansion over here was a Pyle, Nathan Pyle. And that goes back a long time. Over here at the, where Mayberry's lived on Todd Place. Right across the road.
DW O.k.
SR Over, you know where it is, you can see it from here. That's been sold two or three times. Lewis Mayberry lived there and farmed it for Ross Todd, until he sold it.
DW Are you on Jenkins Road?
SR Yeah, Jenkins Road.
DW O.k. O.k.
SR Yeah. See there were Pyle's, and Jenkins, and Nace, or Jenkins married into the Pyle family. I don't know how it was…I'd have to get my history and review my history to get it straight. [Laughs]
DW Now that's Broad Creek that comes down through Pylesville there.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW And uh…
SR And you have all these little streams converging.
DW Right.
SR Right down here at the bottom of the hill. Heck, I was, stayed at home. It washed out on either side of me. There's a creek that comes down this way on this side, bottom of the hill, and then one comes down through Whitefords' and down through…Where's it come out? Well under the bridge here, right down at the bottom of the hill. And that flows into Broad Creek too. And no wonder it flooded, because you have them also coming from over from the Fawn Grove area.
DW Right.
SR In Broad Creek itself.
DW Yep.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW Yeah.
SR I didn't know until recently that Deer Creek, which comes from the northern corner of Harford County starts in… Jean Orsburn's daughter, now Jean Webb Orsburn, the funeral home people. Her daughter lives in Shrewsbury, and it starts in her back yard.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR [Laughs] The beginning of it. I always thought that was an interesting note, too.
DW Yep.
SR Everything has a beginning. And everything has an end.
DW Yeah, I think it comes down through the corner of Baltimore County, actually.
SR Yes. Well yeah, Norrisville.
DW Right.
SR Mmm hmm. See Norrisville is right on that.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Comes across there. It's very interesting. So other than anything else down in Pylesville… Of course you know when they put the road in, they took out a farm. That was the Hicks-Greer farm. [Coughs] It's no longer there. The road goes through about where it was. And then of course Halsey's had a swimming pool when we were kids.
DW Oh.
SR I use to love to come here. It wasn't much bigger than this living room.
DW [Laughs]
SR But it was a swimming pool. And they were there for all that time. Now the house, that stone house, is where Charlie's great, great-great-grandfather, George A. Davis lived at one time.
DW Ah.
SR That has a lot of history too. That's a very old stone house.
DW That's the one right behind Halsey's Store.
SR Yeah, Mmm hmm. Yeah.
DW O.k.
SR: Yeah, they lived there at one time. And someone was telling me the other day was in here, said they knew of several people that had lived around, but it does have a very old… I suppose it's one of the older ones in the whole, in the area. There are a lot of old stone houses around. I have Chris, oh, that did the…Weeks. I have his book.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That did all the old homes around.
DW Right.
SR And some of them are included. Not as many from up here that should be, I didn't think.
DW [Laughs]
SR There should be some more, because when I think of the old Welsh homes down in Cardiff.
DW Right.
SR And then of course he has the Jenkins Place in it. It's a little more showy. But, and he has the Macatee Place. The one out on the corner that Wilson Tharp was working on.
DW Yes. Intersection of St. Mary's Road and Graceton Road.
SR Graceton Road, yeah. That's where it is.
DW Right.
SR But there are a lot of old homes up here. There's a lot, a lot of history, you just take the time… Now I have the Pyle history and the Pyles go back to the Copes. Cope's Corn? Well there, now this is a… That's Nathan, that's a Harry. His wife was a Pyle. Nathan Harry, and that's where the Pyle comes in.
DW [Laughs]
SR But I think the most interesting thing that I found… Michael Whiteford was one of the first in this area. He owned, he owned property all around. Kenny Morris's place, where Marceline Wharton lives, and back here where Kenny, well where Scott Poteet lives now. And was called Fox's Den.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Well, I'm a descendent from Michael Whiteford.
DW O.k.
SR And I, it always made me feel real good to think that I was sitting on my, must be my great, great, great, great grandfather's [laughter] original property called Fox's Den.
DW Yes.
SR But they did, he owned an awful lot of the land. And then of course they had, he had sons and daughters. His, Michael Whiteford's son Edmund Hugh had a daughter Jane and she married Robert Ramsay. And Robert Ramsay was the one who had Ramsay's Tavern.
DW Ramsay's… On Line Road.
SR Uh huh.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So I, there were two brothers, John and Robert. And John is an ancestor of Bill Hess and let's see, some other, in other words these two brothers… I'm not a descendent from him, I'm a descendent from Robert. And someone asked me one time, and I said I'm sure it was Robert, if he had the tavern. [Laughter] So Flora Wiley and I tried our best to do a, to try to find the taverns that were along the Mason Dixon line.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR There were an awful lot of them. That's an interesting… if you can find them.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR But this one is the only one that I know of in existence, and it still has an original closet in it that Nathaniel Ramsay was a poet, and he has inscribed on it. Pat Yale has invited me up to see that and I, she says we never took it off. But that… It was very popular, Ramsay's Tavern.
DW And there was a road too. Ramsay's Tavern Road.
SR Yeah.
DW It's disappeared now.
SR Yeah, right. Mmm hmm.
DW Yep.
SR That's the one that went through from 136 by Donald Merryman, went through the corner of Donald Merryman, and comes out over at Yale's, over in that area.
DW Came right up on Dooley Road.
SR Mmm hmm. Yeah.
DW Yep.
SR It's a, there's just an awful lot of … I get from one thing to the other and I get…and I just can't…I have to concentrate on one thing to get it done right. It's just like genealogy. If someone asks me to tell them something about it, I say look, let me get my mind in the groove. [Laughter] That's what I would want to do.
DW Well, we've been going down Pylesville Road there, so let's, let's go on and a … North Harford. So you had mentioned earlier that you were active in the PTA. I also know that your children were in the band.
SR Yeah. [Laughs] Right.
DW So?
SR Well I became active, actually before the boys… The school was dedicated when? 1952. Because the boys were born in July of 52. And I was active, worked on a committee. Marceline Wharton, of course, got me involved and that was the, that was the first time that I began to work at school. Well then… See Carol and Betsy were still at…
DW Slate Ridge.
SR Slate Ridge. And then when they built, you know they went into high school, they went out there. Well you were in high school, not when they were there, though. Not Carol and Betsy. You're not as old as they are.
DW Yes.
SR Carol's sixty-one. Are you?
DW Well, Betsy was a year ahead of me.
SR Oh, was she a year ahead of you in school?
DW Sixty, Sixty-five. So she should have been '64.
SR She graduated in '64. Carol graduated in '60. Well I just became, I, you know, I liked to know what my kids were doing, and I liked to be involved. So, I became involved in the Band Parents as president twice. The guy that use to be the president resigned and I would, and at that time the president one year and then you became the vice-president the next year. Well then I had to take it the second year. [Laughter] And of course Mike Pastelak and I use to have a few words once in a while, but a lot of people did, so it didn't worry me. [Laughter] I liked Mike, he, I called him and congratulated him when he became a Harford County Outstanding Educator. Then we, I was involved with the band parents, and then of course Carol was in the chorus. And Betsy, of course, was involved in the band. And then the boys didn't go until six years later. See they graduated in '70. They were six years after her. And I could just never get away from PTA. But I have to tell you this. When I found out I was going to have twins, I said I didn't care about the twins. It was that dang PTA that I was worried about. [Laughter] Twenty- some years that I was involved in it.
DW Yeah. Yeah.
SR But I've always felt, I've always liked the teachers. I thought we had good teachers. And I think North Harford deserves a lot more credit than what it gets. So you graduated in '65 then?
DW Yep. Mmm hmm.
SR Mmm hmm. Well its… I've been through a lot around school and I still, I'm still interested. My grandchildren. Matt graduated in 2000. Shelly just graduated this past year. She's at Western Maryland. I say Western Maryland, McDaniel. [Laughs]
DW Yeah.
SR And Meredith, my oldest grand daughter, is a graduate of Elizabethtown. And she's teaching at Kennard-Dale, Special Education. And my oldest grand daughter is adopted and she's a Graphic's Arts major and a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, which is… She did very well out there. So. I'm very proud of my grandchildren. I have one more to get through.
DW [Laughs] Well, lets keep going south.
SR O.k.
DW Madonna? AARP?
SR Yeah. Well yeah. Well, how did I get involved with AARP? One reason, I guess, someone talked me into joining. But I joined the group. They travel and they go on… Marlene Kegley, she was Marlene Gross Kegley, is the tour guide. She works for the Hunt Valley Bus Company, and takes us on some of the most wonderful trips and everything is planned for the senior citizens.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR If it's raining, we're taken into the portico. [Laughter] If somebody has a problem walking, you get help. But the day trips are wonderful. And I guess that's one reason why I got involved. Well of course I got into it, and I can't keep my big mouth shut wherever I go.
DW [Laughs]
SR They were having trouble getting programs. Well, I started suggesting this program and that program, and because they really had some dillies. You know, if somebody just comes and wants to talk about dentistry, or, oh what was another one? Your wills. And who in the heck wants at this age to worry about a will? [Laughter] Investments, and who wants to worry about that?
DW Yeah.
SR So we began to get some interesting, interesting programs down. And then the next thing I knew, I ended up as vice-president. And then of course, I didn't realize it, but they expected me to take the presidency.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, well I don't know whether I should do that. Not at this age. But what do you know. I got one more year to go. [Laughter] And I keep thinking, maybe that's what keeps me moving.
DW Sure.
SR Because I tried to loosen them up a little bit. Henry Heaps and Mary Harry just joined. The wait, it's a three-year wait to get in. If you want to join, you better get your name in. It will take you three years to get in, because we have such a waiting list. They can only take… The reason why they can only take so many is because of our meeting area. We have 185 members, but we have an average of 100 to 125 at every meeting. You must attend four meetings a year to go on these trips. And they all sign up. If there's a trip coming up, you better get there early cause you'll be waiting for an hour to sign up for it.
DW [Laughs]
SR But it's, it's been good, and as I said, we try to loosen them up a little bit. I told someone we had a meeting this week and I never know what I'm going to say. But I said, I looked out over the crowd and there is no one smiling. So we sang a song, we sing a couple of songs. And I said, "For Pete's sake look at each other and smile!" [Laughter] They don't know how serious they get. So then we had, what else did we do? Our program, oh our program was on the bird rescue. And that was interesting. I didn't realize that there's one at Jarrettsville. It's a rehabilitation and something else bird rescue. This gal and her mother seem to be involved in it. They take in all kinds of birds that are hurt. Broken legs, or not sick. I don't know if they take sick birds, but could have a beak that's mangled, you know various things. And they rehabilitate them.
DW Wow.
SR And she says she has pigeons galore. People bring them. You know, they find something that's injured. So that's a, that's a kind of a meeting, a program that we like to have. And something that's, you know, amusing to them. Now I've had Don come down and talk about the slate. Pete Whiteford brought his bottles, and somebody said who in the heck wants to look at old bottles. Well, it was one of the best meetings we had.
DW [Laughs]
SR Then we had an antique show. Like a road show thing.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And Fay Gresham came down and someone brought in an old antique and she couldn't, or she didn't put a price on them. She just said, well now this is an antique, or this is collectable, or this isn't worth much. Not like the one that we had at Slateville where you took one, and he evaluated it. You know, appraised the things.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR But this was just to tell them. But just little things like this that we do and we have the County. We had… Oh, one of the best ones we had was two sheriffs came to talk to us about safety. Believe you me we all came home and made sure our doors were locked and… They told us different things like don't put your checks in the mailbox if you're sending, paying your bills.
DW Right.
SR They could take your checks and alter them.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Golly, all of us now are going to the Post Office and mailing our checks. [Laughter]
DW We do.
SR Yeah. I mean I never dreamed of it; never thought about it. I'm too trusting.
DW Yeah.
SR I trust everyone until they do something to me, and then look out. [Laughter] I don't… And I told someone one time I turn this cheek, this cheek, and this cheek, and this cheek [laughter] one time, and then I've had it. Oh well, that's the way it goes.
DW You were also active, I believe, on the Board of Citizens Care Center.
SR I'm on that Board now.
DW Oh, you're on that Board…
SR I've been on every Board in this county.
DW [Laughs]
SR I'm not kidding you. I've been on every Board in this County. I was on the TB Board. Oh, also… A couple things that have happened in my lifetime I'm very proud of. I was chosen the Outstanding Volunteer in the State of Maryland by the Maryland Library Association in 1992.
DW Oh.
SR Now the council recognized… I have a proclamation for that too that recognized me. That was one; that was a nice honor. But I had worked you know to get the library going. Been on the Board for twelve years, on the library board for twelve years, and worked to get this library out here which is… I say as far as anything in my life, I guess that I have accomplished, that's one of the ones that I really am proud of. But, as I told you before. And then also, I got a community service award. But anyhow, to get to the Boards, I was on TB Board, Cancer Board, Historic Trust.
DW [Laughs]
SR I've been on the Citizen's Care Center Board for six years. And I really enjoy that. It's, I feel like we're doing something good. And let's see, I organized the Peach Bottom Red Cross Unit, which entails… See, we're under the Baltimore Council. Peach Bottom is also. Comes out of York.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So I did, got that going. An organizer of the Old Line Museum. And gee, I can't believe this. I was thinking about the other day. I was on the first Board of the Delta Community Center.
DW Mmm.
SR That was before we had, had no ceiling in it. [Laughter] It was kind of on the rough side. I know it was Pete Ambrose and Eddie Beakes and Marie Burton and myself, comprised the Board. So then now things have changed and they've done a… They really have a nice building.
DW Yeah.
SR They have a real nice building. The only thing that bothers me, too… Another thing that bothers me is, when we talking about the Mason Dixon line, how things are divided. To me it's… Actually all it means… The only reason that line, or where it makes any difference is when you vote and what was the other one? There's another one.
DW Driver's license.
SR Well, yeah.
DW [Laughs]
SR To have a license in Maryland, you have to have a driver's license.
DW Yeah.
SR But as I said, it's a community and it should remain a community.
DW Yes.
SR But the splitting of the fire company did not help. And I won't go into that any further.
DW [Laughs]
SR Some of the remarks that I could make on that. But it's, it just hurts when you have a community where everyone gets along so well and works together. And I go to church in Pennsylvania. Slateville Church. All my ancestors are buried there. As a matter of fact, that guy sitting over there on the wall was one of the first Elders in Slateville Presbyterian Church.
DW Mmm, o.k.
SR And I'm very proud of the fact that I, my roots are in Peach Bottom Township, Delta, Lower Chanceford. I graduated from Lower Chanceford in high school, cause we were across Muddy Creek. But, and here I am living in Harford County and I do just as much in Pennsylvania as I do in Harford County.
DW Sure.
SR [Laughs] And I felt like I've been doing enough in Harford County when I sat down and wrote about it.
DW Yeah. [Laughter]
SR Well, I helped organize the Old Mine Museum and worked for years to get it off the ground. Now my daughter-in-law's there and she's doing a good job, and Don. And they're history-minded. That's the nice thing about two people, if you have the same interest.
DW Oh, yes. Well it's also nice that your interest in history has past onto your children.
SR Well, I, you know… I know that my files are a mess. I'm sure that whoever will go through them will figure I'm certainly not organized. Well, I can organize everybody else in this community or country, but I can't organize myself, my family.
DW [Laughs]
SR But anyway, I have saved a lot of information that can be… Now Don, Don will get into it. David's into history, too, both of them. David's major in college was history. But, and he's interested in, oh my gosh… Terry doesn't know what she's going to do with all this stuff that he collects.
DW [Laughs]
SR And Don was collecting old machinery and then they had a big fire up at New Park and burned, burned up a lot of…. He and Dave Glenn, Dr. Glenn?
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Are old machinery collectors.
DW Oh.
SR They just believe… But where do you put it all? [Laughs]
DW Yeah. Space is limited.
SR I have warned them that if anything happens to me, a lot of these things that I have in here are old family things that I've saved.
DW Right.
SR And I said, please, what ever you do, if you don't want them, put them in storage because maybe the grandchildren will want them, or maybe my great-grandchildren will want them.
DW Right.
SR But I said, don't put them in a sale! [Laughter] Well, then they go. And I keep a history of everything, too. Just, you know, to tell them who it is.
DW Yeah.
SR So, what else do you want to hear?
DW Well, somewhere in these interviews we always try to talk about what kind of changes you've seen in the county. You know, positive or, or particularly positive. Let's do positive first.
SR O.k.
DW O.k.
SR Well, one of the most positive things was when I came here, that we didn't have a Republican Primary. [Laughs]
DW Ah. [Laughs]
SR And while I… And I think when Stanley Blair and, oh gosh, John Hardwick, and the fellow down at Baldwin, I know his name, ran for office, they were the first Republicans who ever ran for anything. But I served… I, not very long after I came, I was one of the first women judges, and served for twenty-five years. Went through, starting at the Slate Ridge School, where they voted. And then went, and of course I've been a good Republican all my life, I my as well admit that.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I admit it, I mean I'm proud of it. Then we went from there to North Harford.
DW Right.
SR And I worked twenty-five years as a judge in Harford County. And I have always been interested in politics. Not to the point that I ever wanted to run for anything, because I'll tell you…. Oh golly, I can't think of his name; I'll think of it. Anyhow, he's a delegate and he called me and said, "Sarah, how would you like to run for the House of Delegates?"
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, "You're kidding!" He said, "No I'm not." He said,"You think it over." So that evening at the dinner table I said, " Charlie"… Wilson Scarff. I said, " Wilson called me today and wanted to know if I'd run for the House of Delegates." And he looked up and he said, "The day you move into politics, I leave home." [Laughter] And boy that fixed that! So I just work on the sidelines and that type of thing.
DW Yeah.
SR Once in a while I have a coffee, or I have had in the past. I haven't been able to, coffee for somebody who was running for an office, but I'm interested.
DW Yeah.
SR And I'm interested in the fact that we do have a two-party system, which really we didn't… A lot of people joined the Democratic, became Democrats because it was the only time they could vote…
DW Yes.
SR in a primary.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Well my first voting was in a Republican Primary.
DW Mmm.
SR Now, not the first time. No, cause I was, that was 19… We didn't have a Republican Primary until Stanley ran, which was later. When I first voted, it was…
DW Like the 60's.
SR It was forty-two. Forty-two.
DW I don't think the Republicans had a primary until the 60's or 70's.
SR No. See it was at least then, the 60's. It was in the 60's, I'm pretty sure.
DW Right.
SR So things have come a long way, that way.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then, the fact that they put a bypass in. They bypassed Delta and Cardiff. It made a big difference, because today trucks couldn't, they couldn't get through.
DW Right.
SR It's, it's amazing. I feel badly about the fact that we have no railroad through anymore. It was kind of a shame that that turned out like it did. And one of the saddest things that happened, the old turntable use to be at the upper end of town, where they'd come down, the train would turn around?
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Well Don and several of them did everything they could to keep this thing from leaving the community. A company out in St. Louis, some company bought it, or got it and took it to St. Louis, and its laying down there in a junk pile.
DW Wow.
SR And the old time thing… I said, well what would you have done with it? Well he didn't know, but…[Laughter] See, they even had a group trying to preserve the railroad like, you know, preserve the area. Now, in Pennsylvania all that land that the railroad was on has reverted to the farm, to the one that owned it.
DW Oh.
SR Now here in Maryland… I don't know what happens here in Maryland, end of it. But in Pennsylvania, that's right. Slateville and Slate Ridge, Chanceford, Harmony Churches; there were five churches, had their beginning at the Log Church of the Barrons which is at the conjunction of Scotts Creek and Muddy Creek. And it's about a good three quarters of a mile off of 851, at Bryansville. Well, back there we have a marker where the old, it was called the Log Church of the Barrens. And there's a big marker there, and the man who owned the property gave them an acre, a square acre. And of course that was deeded to Donegal Presberry but we had no access to it.
DW [Laughs]
SR Now in the deed, and Ross McGuiness was suppose to be working on this, in the deed is suppose to be that we have access to it, but the man that lives there will not let anyone through. And that's where the railroad went down. We use to go down and walk down the railroad, where the railroad was. It would take you right to it. But it's all isolated back there.
DW [Laughs]
SR So that's the kind of thing that happens, you know, when people get…
DW Modern times.
SR Yeah. Yeah. No on wants you… You can't step on anybody's property. Don't do this and don't do that. Well I've always respected property. Of course I grew up on the farm. And I'm not kidding you Doug, and I'm not exaggerating. There isn't anything that I haven't done on the farm except… I never delivered a calf, I never delivered a pig; [laughter] I never did anything like that. My father made sure we weren't around. But when it came to working, I did everything there ever was. I've ridden a horse since I was just a wee tot.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I have a picture here some place where I was sitting on a horse when I was three years old. And he was a horse; wasn't a pony. And we had horses and ponies. We roamed the hills and I, I could write a book. [Laughter] They were talking about raking hay and doing this and that. I said no, we did it the hard way. We bunched it by hand, you know, fork, then we raked it up and then we made our bunches. And I said many a wagonload I've loaded and many a one… I use to drive the, what they call the hayfork to unload the hay.
DW Right.
SR Drove the mule to that. And I even hitched up… I've done all the milking at one time. We had, my dad had hired men, but one day one couldn't be there, so I did the milking.
DW [Laughs]
SR We didn't have that many cows, but a, at least…
DW Right.
SR I've done it. [Laughs] I've done it. So what else were we talking about?
DW Changes—good, bad.
SR Well, we had good times when we were younger. We didn't have, of course we didn't have television. We went out and made our own fun. We had parties. We use to play spin the bottle, hide and seek, and that kind of thing. But we made our own fun. Coasting, skating, uh, what else did we do? We did, we didn't have sleds; we got pieces of board or a cardboard box, or something like that. At church we had things planned. Our Youth… It was kind of a center. I lived across the road from the Delta, uh, Salem Methodist Church. And I went to Sunday school there at nine o'clock and played in their Sunday school band. And my mother picked me up at ten and I'd go to Pine Grove. We were Presbyterians; go to Pine Grove and play in that band. [Laughter] So I was busy all the time. But we had… When I started high school it was our first orchestra that we had in Lower Chanceford. Lower Chanceford was a three-year high school, and then they built one. And when I started too, it was a year after I, before I started they had a four-year high school. And that was when we started our first high school band. So you learned to play an instrument and the first thing you know you all got together. I used to ride my pony to… You know Gerald Hess, not Gerald, but Bill Hess?
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Alright Bill's brother, Gerald and I were in the same class. He was a trumpet player and I was clarinet. And we, for Sunday school, for Salem Sunday school, we practiced at their house. So I'd ride my pony.
DW [Laughs]
SR At night! And coming home it was that black you couldn't see anything, and I just gave him his head; I knew he'd take me home. [Laughter] But now today, I would no more ride a pony out in those hills for anything.
DW Yeah.
SR But we had, oh let's see for other fun, we went to the movies a lot. Oh it was a great thing when you could go to York to the movies. And Delta of course was a big thing. And I remember going to all the westerns. Ken Maynard… [Laughter] Some of the old, let's see, who were some more, Tom Mix, some of the old westerners. And I even remember them when, you know Enid Lewis played the piano at the theatre. John Harkin's mother played at one time, too. They played along with the silent movie type. I remember the only silent movie I every saw was a Leslie Howard, and that's been a long time ago. But after that thing, we got the talkies, and things changed there.
DW [Laughs]
SR But in town, where the changes have come we don't have any restaurants in town. But as I told you, we use to go to Ethel Smoker, Ethel Norris's Restaurant and get... Then there was one across the street from Robinson Brothers called Jones's Restaurant, and there was another place that you could congregate. And then you had Pappy Poff's Ice Cream Parlor, which was on up the street. Now, but see, we were one town.
DW Right. Right.
SR We didn't, you know, it didn't matter whether you lived… And I don't believe that there was a lot of competition between Cardiff boys and Delta boys, you know, that type of thing. You ought to see Dick Heap's halls where they played basketball. Delta High School had all their games there and many a dance on the second floor.
DW [Laughs]
SR There was a guy from Havre de Grace that use to come up and play. Use to come up to Slate Ridge and play. And we went through that. Now this was before the War. We went through a period where square dancing was really fun. And we use to have square dances at the Dick Heap's building, up at the top. And they had some nice round dancing too. And then at Slate Ridge auditorium, we use to have many a square dance in there.
DW Hmm.
SR You… Airville Hall, and then we would go to St. Mary's. Always went to St. Mary's tournament and went to the dances.
DW Right.
SR I mean that was, that was the ultimate to go.
DW [Laughs]
SR It really was. Bel Air… I was never really that well acquainted with Bel Air until after I was married. And of course they had a lot of nice, a couple of nice restaurants that we used to go to. We used to go to the Armory to dances. In fact, I remember one particular before, before the war. They had nice dances, and I don't know who sponsored it. But the guy from the orchestra from Havre de Grace, what was his name? Hasn't been too many years. I think that somebody still goes by the name that they played. It was a dance, you know, nice dancing. It was really nice dancing.
DW [Laughs]
SR It really was. It was like the Susque Centennial that they had. They had the dance up at the VFW. And it was really nice. It had a three-piece orchestra that was absolutely out of this world. They played all the old tunes. Everybody was just having a wonderful time.
DW [Laughs]
SR So I took two Celebrex and danced with the undertaker. [Laughter] I thought, my golly, I'm going to go and have a good time tonight.
DW Yeah.
SR But anyway, let's see, we're back to… What else went on? [Sighs] Bus, you know, they didn't have bus trips like we have now. We traveled some; Charlie and I used to travel. The big thing around here at one time was go to Florida for a couple of weeks.
DW Right.
SR That was, that was the big thing. I remember, I could name three or four, two couples would get together and go to Florida and spend the week or so. Then come back and that was their vacation. We use to… We went to all the World's Fairs. Well, New York. I remember going to '30, what was it? '30, no the one in '33 I think was Chicago. Charlie went to that one. The next one in '37 or '36 was in New York. Went by train.
DW Mmm.
SR Didn't drive. We went to Aberdeen, took the train, took you right into the World's Fair. You enjoyed it, came back, got your train and came back, and that's all there was to it. I loved traveling by train.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I think it's a good way. I like the bus traveling, too, because it'll take you right to the door. But automobile driving anymore is just… I just don't enjoy it at all.
DW Yeah. Too fast.
SR It is. It really… And you never know what the next guy's going to do. I'm a defensive driver. I'm always anticipating that a guy coming toward me.
DW Yeah.
SR And I think that's the safest thing to do. And some day I'll probably forget. [Laughter] You never know.
DW Well…
SR You want to talk about the price of things?
DW [Laughs] Well, that's a change. That's for sure.
SR Oh, golly. Back when I was a girl… Of course you didn't get a chance, an opportunity to go shopping every week like people do today, or they did there for a while. You know, every time you turn around you were shopping. So, I remember the Philadelphia Inquirer and another one. I was talking about this to Mabel Day the other day. Philadelphia Inquirer was one paper and then another one from Philadelphia. The minute they would advertise specials, Lit Brothers and John Wanemaker's and I don't know what all. Well you'd fill out the application, send for it and the next thing you knew, you had something new. [Laughter] But a lot… Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, when you lived on the farm, you ordered it. You look at an old Montgomery Ward or an old Sears and Roebuck catalog today, and it's unbelievable, the changes in the…
DW: O.k., go ahead, we're back.
SR O.k. As I started to say, the hardest thing that I think that I've had to face is the change in prices over the years. Just like I was talking about, a twenty-five cent hamburger and that kind of thing, and you go today and what you have to pay. And it's very hard for me to get to that level of spending. I'm a comparison shopper and a sale buyer, [laughter] you know. Betsy told me the other day I was compulsive.
DW [Laughs]
SR But I said well, if I see something I like, I do, I get it. But at the same time it's very hard to adjust to those prices, because when we were kids, we didn't have a whole lot. You had two pairs of shoes, and you had a winter coat, one winter coat. Today, your closet's full of everything, and I don't like to throw anything away.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because I think maybe someone will come along and can wear it.
DW Right.
SR I give to the Purple Heart and I used to take things to Good Will, and I still do that. But I'm always looking in my closet thinking, now wonder if so and so could wear that. Or if someone would like…I just hate to throw it away. I know I'm never going to get back into it. [Laughter] But it's just, it's that adjustment to the price of things. I had a small thing in my bathroom. It was, well the pipe wouldn't drain, so I called the plumber. He came in and he put a, he says, "Well I'll fix that." He poured something down the drain and that was it.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then he looked at my bathroom and it needed a new flapper. Now guess what that bill was.
DW [Laughs] Well, probably seventy-five dollars just to knock on the door.
SR Ninety-five dollars.
DW Yeah.
SR And I don't know what the service call was, but that hurts.
DW Yeah.
SR That hurts. I know they all have to make a living, I knew that. But, I 'm a, I'm getting by, I'm not complaining, I get by. But I live on my social security plus my investments. And I don't live high. Charlie and I did never live high. We wanted to educate our children, which we did. We educated all four of them. And our feeling was, that's one thing that you can give them that no one can take away from them.
DW Yep.
SR And that's the way I feel about it, and I'm the same way…I mean, it just hurts me so to see what they have to pay to put their children through school. I went to Elizabethtown College. It cost me five hundred dollars that first year. Carol went in 1960 and she was paying, I think it was three thousand when she started, and it ended up being like four or five before she graduated.
DW Right.
SR Meredith went in 2000, she graduated before, ___________________ anyhow, say 2000, year 2000. Twenty-eight thousand dollars.
DW Hmm.
SR Shelly is going to McDaniel, Western Maryland. And Kitty Kerr told me the other day that hers was a hundred and fifty dollars. I said that's twenty-nine thousand dollars for Shelly.
DW [Laughs] Wow.
SR Now you know what Doug, when you have a family to educate, or that you want to educate, somebody has to sacrifice.
DW Yeah.
SR And they say well they can go borrow it, they can do this or go do that. All right, if they borrowed that whole amount, it would take them the rest of their lives to pay it off.
DW Oh yes. Oh yes.
SR And I, now Shelly has a, Shelly has a partial scholarship, which helps, and then the fact that they have Matt down in St. Mary's. By the way, St. Mary's is one of the best-kept secrets in this whole country.
DW [Laughs]
SR It's a good… You know it's an honors college to begin with.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And he started out, it was pretty rough. But, he's managed it, and his mother said the other day he has almost a 4.0. He's a Biology major. But he had to learn to study.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Now Meredith had no problems in school. She just, she just breezes through. But she'll make a good Special Ed teacher. I know that. But I'm real proud of them, I really am. But as I said, the adjustment that you had to make to these things is really one of the hardest things.
DW Mmm hmm. Education and health care are the two worst as far as price.
SR Oh, oh my, what will we do without Medicare and Blue Cross/Blue shield, or whatever.
DW Yeah.
SR I mean I, I cannot believe… Just let me give you a good example. I don't mind who knows this. Charlie had a pace maker, all right? I know putting the pace maker in cost a good bit of money, but our Blue Cross/Blue Shield took care of it. And when he was in the hospital, just six weeks before he died, they decided they'd replace the battery to his pace maker. Guess what the bill was for that replacement.
DW It had to be thousands just…
SR Six thousand dollars.
DW Yeah, right.
SR And I said something to someone there. And they said, "Well, we don't have a code for it."
DW Forty-five cent battery. [Laughs]
SR Yeah. I mean that to me, I, is it me or am I distrustful, or what is it? Because it seems to me that somebody is always trying to rip somebody off. That's why I like our little community. This, to me, is a unique area to live in.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Because you don't know everyone, but you know a good many people. And there a lot of people moving here that don't want to know you either. You see a lot of new homes. Just like our churches, our churches are just… I don't know how St. Mary's is doing. Of course you grew up in a big area.
DW Right.
SR But we have, our churches are just dropping and dropping. The young people are not interested.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And I, we don't know what it is. Now when they die or they want to get married, well they're right back there. Well, of course they are if they're dead, but… [Laughter] But, and they'll baptize their children. They'll bring their children, baptize them, and that's the last time you see them. Or then when their kid wants to join church, that's the last you see them. I don't, I don't mean to be critical of it, but it's a, it's a trend that we older ones really worry about.
DW Yes.
SR And it, it's the up keeping… I see the day when possibly we won't have a Minister. We won't be able to afford it. Because they said they have a minimum salary you have to pay them, and then you have all the other things that go along. And it's, if people don't give to the church, it's not going to exist. We have people that come once a year, and that's the only time they ever put anything in the offering plate.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And you have others that don't show up at all. Don't do anything. And at the same time we're paying a head tax, what we call a head tax on them.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So it's, that disturbs me. I suppose one of the biggest things, one of the, another big thing that disturbs me is the fact that the churches are just not reaching these people. And maybe they don't like organized religion, I don't know. I'm a traditionalist.
DW [Laughs]
SR I like the old, ya know. I, I'm not the old shouting Methodist type. I'm a good old Presbyterian.
DW [Laughs]
SR But, and I know that maybe things are stayed in, I don't know, are organized in your church, or whatever, but I like that. I don't like the a… I've been, I've been to some, I've heard some where they get all upset and they start screaming, yelling, hollering. All that to me is just emotion.
DW [Laughs]
SR You know, you don't have to wear your religion out on your shoulder. You know that. You're a good Catholic.
DW [Laughs]
SR You know that. You know how, how it is. And I have… as I said, my ancestors were all Presbyterians. I have this much German in me.
DW [Laughs]
SR My great-great grandparents came from Germany, Dusseldorf area, (Betsy and Dick just visited over there) and settled in Lower Chanceford Township. And they were Lutherans when they came here, but there was no Lutheran Church in York County at that area, so they became Methodists.
DW [Laughs]
SR And that was the only, the only bit I have. I tell, I go like this; all the rest of me is Scotch-Irish. There's Stewart, Campbell, oh you name it. Stewart, Campbell, McConkey, Patterson, Campbell. I named that. Let's see, Whiteford. Michael Whiteford came from Scotland and Ramsays. All Scotch-Irish.
DW Right.
SR And you know the old story; I don't know if you ever heard this or not. But, the Barrens, this is called the Barren, you know that. And maybe you've heard this story, that William Penn had trouble getting people to come to this country. Well, anyhow, he brought in the settlement, he brought in the Scotch-Irish. The Quakers, who lived to the north, were afraid of the Indians who lived here. Well, not afraid; they were peaceful who wouldn't fight, I had that backwards. They were peaceful and wouldn't fight. The Calverts were afraid of them. So, he brought in the Scotch-Irish who weren't afraid of anyone.
DW [Laughs]
SR And you know, it's the truth. And you don't tell a Scotch-Irishman he has to do anything.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because he's going to say, "Oh yeah"? [Laughs] When I, when I think of my Scotch-Irish ancestry, I can see where that is very true. I go back to Lower Chanceford Revolutionary War ancestors. And through the McConkeys, Rippys and the Stewarts and I started naming them, Campbells, they all fought in the Revolutionary War. In fact, my one ancestor fought in the Battle of Long Island, which was lost. You know, we lost that to the British. I have that history.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR But that's why, that's why I get involved in talking about people. I get started and I never know when to stop.
DW [Laughs]
SR Cause I just, I just like, I just like to talk about it. And Charlie told me one time I was going to find the black sheep. I said that's what I'm looking for.
DW [Laughs]
SR They weren't all perfect. Jim Tarbert told me one time that his ancestor was a pirate.
DW Mmm hmm. [Laughs]
SR I said that, that's exciting to me. That he was… I love to read, and I know some of it's you know, built up, but I think that's wonderful. And they all had their own stills. [Laughter] Matter of fact, well little bit like Dave Craig, Mayor of Havre de Grace, came and talked at our DAR one time, and talked about what they had to drink. Well they made rum because they couldn't drink the water. [Laughter] Course that was a good excuse to drink the rum, too.
DW Oh yeah. [Laughter]
SR But, going back to the old days, it's hard to imagine, to me, it's very hard to imagine how people exist. And then they wonder… you know, I say this is a unique area. You don't talk about anybody because they're all related.
DW Oh yes. [Laughter]
SR And, and I said well how far could they go? I have Charlie's grandparents, grandparents or great, his great grandparent's love letters. She lived in, she lived in this area cause he lived in the Pylesville area somehow. Anyhow, they went back and forth on the train, so some of the letters went back and forth on the train. But how they corresponded with each other. They went to see each other at night…And they, they did their courting at church meetings and home parties. They were always having some kind of a party for someone.
DW [Laughs]
SR And all in this, all in this little area. But that was a big area.
DW Yes.
SR All right, I lived in, I was ten miles from my grandparents. And boy I'll tell you, it was a treat to go visit my grandparents, it was so far away.
DW It was. Mmm hmm.
SR My dad courted my mother in a horse and buggy to start with. So, and he had ten miles to go. [Laughter] And then I remember the first car. See, I drove a car; I've driven a car since I was nine years old, maybe even less than that. But my dad's left leg was off. And he had a Model T Ford truck, and I used to sit where his leg was off. And I would work the pedals, and drive.
DW [Laughs]
SR And of course he'd be right there holding on to me. One time a friend of mine decided we were going for a ride, and it was a Model T Ford. So she said, let's go for a ride and I said, well I don't know whether we can do it; I can't see over the wheel. She says well I can see over the wheel. So I sat on the floor and changed…
DW [Laughs]
SR pushed the pedals. [Laughter] Oh you name it, Doug, I've been around. Oh gosh, just different things. Now I'll keep quiet. [Laughs]
DW Ah, well we certainly have covered a, a large span and the, the memories of Main Street, Delta and Cardiff, Whiteford, or a…
SR You know there's something I didn't mention was VJ day.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That was one of the biggest times in Delta when all the soldiers came back. That picture is in the museum; it's in the book, too…
DW Right.
SR of them marching down Main Street. That I would say was one of the most exciting times in Delta. See, Charlie was in the service and served at Aberdeen, and I got to tell you this real quick. I had a reputation. He was Lieutenant in charge of taking out… Remember what the ducks looked like, those big amphibious ducks?
DW Yes.
SR They float on land and water. Well he was taking a convoy to Gettysburg, and of course he had to come through Cardiff. Well I got up that morning and was going to go to York to shop and I couldn't get the car started. So I went out and stood up the street. I knew about what time he was coming through, and I flagged down the whole convoy.
DW [Laughs]
SR And it was a convoy of ducks from Cardiff, from down, well the middle of Cardiff, all the way back to Slate Ridge School.
DW [Laughs]
SR I never lived that one down. [Laughter] That's just a little war story.
DW Yeah.
SR That was a, it was a tough time. Charlie was stationed at Aberdeen, but we just lived on the edge all the time. Because every time you turned around they were going to ship them out.
DW Right.
SR Well he happened to have a Colonel… He was in the base shop. He happened to have a Colonel who wanted, trained a group of guys he wanted them to stay there. And that's how he got to stay there. Otherwise, he would have been gone. But we absolutely every, every two weeks he'd say, well I hear we're going to be shipped. So that's the way we lived, and it was not fun. It was not fun. But it was, it was, you know there were good days and bad days. But anyhow, VJ Day was one of the biggest, biggest days in Cardiff. We had a big parade.
DW Good.
SR We use to have a Delta, always, we always went to the Delta Cardiff parades. We started out in Whiteford, and everybody lined up, and people came from all, everywhere to watch that parade.
DW Right.
SR And culminated at community hall or wherever they… Where were the grounds then? Way back years ago. I'm trying to think of where they had their, their carnival. I guess it was always up here. Cause that community building was there before the, well right after the war.
DW Yeah.
SR Right after that. I don't know where they had it before that. I don't even know that they ever had one.
DW: I don't know the history of that.
SR I don't, but I have to look into that and kind of…
DW [Laughs]
SR Get, get it unscrambled as to what went on. But it, it, I, I've always been here, I've always worked for the community, I'm a community minded person, I really am. Someone wanted to know what I did. I said I'm a community activist is what… We do this at the college, we come out in the college reviews, you know, they want to know what you do. And I always write down Community Activist.
DW [Laughs]
SR What else, what else could I put down. I, you name it; I've been into it. [Laughs] And I've tried to do it. That's been my whole problem. A Jack-of-all-Trades; Master of None.
DW [Laughs]
SR But its, its…
DW Well.
SR It's been a good life.
DW Well, your activity has certainly helped the community here.
SR Well I hope it's helped the community.
DW You're well like and well respected.
SR Thank you.
DW: So…
SR I enjoy, I enjoy the people. I think I have a few friends around. And we're getting older. And I'm so pleased that my kids are growing up in, in the area. Carol is only twenty miles away.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And she still teaches.
DW Yeah.
SR But they live here and they're active, and doing things. So that to me is, it's kind of a satisfaction to say, well at least they're doing something, giving back. I believe in, you know, give back what you can. And as far as the library, I would say, I might as well say, that to me is one of the biggest accomplishments or, for the community, now. I didn't do this all alone; I had a lot of help. You know that.
DW Sure.
SR You have to get people to help. It's like getting the money, and getting organized. And I know there was a little bit of dissention about the charging of the membership. A lady called me and she said, " I thought libraries were free." And I said, "Who do you think pays for the books?"
DW [Laughs]
SR And they've calmed down. They realize they have a good thing going.
DW Yeah.
SR And it's, it's, Stewartstown is finally getting on the ball. They're building a library. Pennsylvania Library system is nothing like it is in Maryland. This Maryland. Harford County is recognized nation wide.
DW Oh.
SR Yep. Oh, and when Irene Padilla used to go to the national meetings, there was always something about Harford County coming. So that makes you feel good that Harford County has such a good system. And you, and we must give Dorothy Glackin a lot of credit. Got things going in an organized way you know, where we started out. Like everything you do, you start out small like the Cardiff Homemakers collecting books and exchanging.
DW Right.
SR These book clubs today, did the same thing.
DW Yeah.
SR Reading is… I don't know what, if anything happens to my eyes, I don't know what I would do. I guess I would go to the talking books. [Laughter] That's all that's left to do anyhow. Then you lose your hearing and you're…
DW Whoa. [Laughter]
SR ________You never know. Well, it's, I've enjoyed, I've enjoyed talking to you, though.
DW I enjoyed this very much, and the Oral History will be available in the library.
SR Well, I hope it isn't too jumbled. [Laughs]
DW Which is rather fitting. So… But I am going to say thank you very much. I appreciate your time. The citizens of Harford County appreciate your time.
SR Thank you. Thank you. I've enjoyed it.
SARA ROBINSON
Harford Living Treasure
Hello, this is Doug Washburn, for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 29 October 2003, and I'm with one of Harford's Living Treasures, Sara Robinson of Whiteford. Born just above the Mason Dixon line, Mrs. Robinson has lived in Harford County for more than sixty years. Mrs. Robinson's nomination was made by, June Atkin. Mrs. Robinson, thank you for taking time with me today and for sharing your memories for our county citizens to enjoy. Welcome.
SR Thank you.
DW [Laughs] So, I know you were born in Pennsylvania, but, where and when?
SR I was born just over the line, just north of Delta, about a mile, on April 8, 1921. I'm the oldest, eldest of a family of five children. My father and mother were… No one knew him, his right name, they called him Babe. Babe and Nell Wiley. And he was a handicapped man. He had… He is a man to be admired in many, many ways. He raised a family of five children. He owned three farms, and he was a, he was a go-getter. With all his, his leg was off at his hip, he could do anything, but run. And, if you got in trouble, and he said, "come here", you better go, because it was going to be worse if he caught up with you. [Laughter]
DW Now you said a mile north of Delta.
SR Uh huh.
DW Is that still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes.
DW That all is, still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes, well really over the hill. Takes it's a mile to get there, but it's just over the hill where I was born. My mother taught school at Mount Holly.
DW Oh.
SR And I don't know whether that's when she met my dad, or not. But a, she met him and she has two pupils who are still living, Dorothy Kilgore, and Betty Griffith. And not long ago they told me that they were in first grade…Am I talking o.k?
DW Oh yes, fine.
SR They were in first grade and at Christmas time they had a, they use to have little entertainments, Christmas entertainments?
DW Uh huh.
SR And they all gathered at the school, of course, for a Christmas entertainment. And my mother never showed up. The next day they found out that my father had been in an accident and had his leg taken off and she had gone to Philadelphia. Well in those days, there were no telephones, you had no lighting, you had no way of communicating.
DW Right.
SR And they didn't find out until the next day.
DW [Laughs] So did your, did your family, your mom and dad; did they always live on the Pennsylvania side?
SR Oh, yes.
DW O.k.
SR My dad was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k.
SR His, my father was Babe Wiley.
DW Um hum.
SR And all his family settled in Peach Bottom Township. In fact they call it Wiley Hollow, down near Valley School.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That's where, that's where he was born and reared.
DW So that wouldn't be too far from Mount Nebo Church.
SR No, no.
DW Just across the road.
SR But then he moved. Now, then they moved to the top of the Forge Hill which was in Lower Chanceford Township.
DW Ah.
SR Just over. But, I was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k. But you went to school in Lower Chanceford.
SR In Lower Chanceford.
DW: O.k. Cause I've seen you had a lot of the…
SR Oh, yes.
DW community hall activities where you have the photos of Lower Chanceford.
SR Uh huh. Well, I just got my certificates out. I never missed a day of school in my life.
DW Oh, wow! [Laughs]
SR In fact I have two, I had two brothers and two sisters. None of us ever missed a day until my youngest brother was to graduate, and one month before he graduated, he got the measles.
DW [Laughs]
SR We had a record up until then. My mother figured how many thousands of lunches she had packed.
DW [Laughs]
SR Cause we went to a one-room school. We went, they took, I went by horse. I went by… We had an old sleigh. I remember my dad taking us to school in a Bobsled, over the fences when the snow was deep. Then we graduated to a, the first one, we called it the dogcart. It was a, like a small truck with wire on the sides and leather came down. Then, the next one I remember we called it the bread wagon. It looked like a bread wagon. [Laughter] And it was very dangerous. It had a bench in the middle where the kids sat on the, the boys sat on the bench and the girls on the side. And then they went from that to an old hearse. I mean it was, see we didn't have buses then.
DW Mm hmm.
SR You just whatever, and people, local people took the children to school. So, it was interesting. [Laughs]
DW So, what brought you to Harford County side?
SR Well, of course when I got married. I met Charlie and we were married in May, May 3, 1941. And I moved to Cardiff. At the time I was working in Harrisburg for the medical and dental boards where we licensed doctors and dentists. And at that time the refugee doctors were coming to this country. They had no credentials. They had a terrible time. They'd come to our office and we'd help them get their credentials and get things lined up for them. It was a very interesting, very interesting work, place to work, too.
DW Hmm.
SR Anyhow, we were married May 3, 1941, at Slate Ridge Church. And we did that because he was going to be drafted, and we decided to get married before he was drafted. And of course we could get a three-day license in Maryland, where Pennsylvania took you two weeks.
DW Ah.
SR So that was one of those quickies. [Laughter]
DW So now when you say Slate Ridge Church, this would be the one that's on Main Street.
SR In Cardiff.
DW In, right next to the Mason Dixon Line.
SR Right. That's right.
DW O.k., so…
SR Slate Ridge Presbyterian Church.
DW Mmm hmm. Right. So um, when you got married, you quit working in Harrisburg?
SR I quit working in Harrisburg after I gave them a couple months notice. I couldn't quit right way.
DW Right.
SR Because I hated to walk out. But, I came back to, we came to Cardiff and we started housekeeping in a little apartment in Cardiff. And Straley Greer was our bookkeeper at Robinson Brothers. He was leaving and they asked me to take his place, so I went to work at Robinson Brothers when I came home.
DW Ah.
SR And that was the, really the last… Well I worked until our oldest daughter was born. Carole was born August 1942.
DW So, your husband already had an established business when you got married?
SR Oh yes. Oh yes.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR Robinson Brothers. Robinson Brothers began with his father in 1916, and then he had his brother, Uncle Arthur, we call him. He came in with him a couple of years and Robinson Brothers had been there since that time, 1916, bought the old Gailey building. And Charlie went to, graduated from Slate Ridge School, and went to the University of Maryland. And, there's a story to that. On his 21st birthday, he was a senior, on his 21st birthday he came home and said to his dad, "I'm not going back to school." His father wanted him to be a doctor and he was in a pre-med course. And Charlie did not want to be a doctor. So he came home and started with Robinson Brothers. He was there ever since. [Laughter]
DW Now that would be the building that burned not too long ago.
SR Yes. Mmm hmm.
DW Last year or so.
SR Yes, last Christmas. Last Christmas.
DW O.k., that was…
SR That was an old, old building, and a, and a firetrap too. There was no doubt about that. But, that's where they had their business. And then they had, down at the railroad station, the Cardiff Station, is where the feed mill was.
DW O.k.
SR And…
DW So we're…
SR Pa Adams…
DW So we're right at the intersection of Dooley Road and Main Street.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW And the Robinson Brother building would have been just on the north side.
SR That's right.
DW And the train station would have been just on the south side.
SR Yes, going down, what's that road? Dooley Road.
DW Dooley Road. O.k.
SR Dooley Road, just right at the railroad tracks. Because they had a siding where they brought in molasses and feed and of course they dropped the mail off. When the train was operating, that's where the mail was dropped off. And Charlie, as a boy, at one time carried the mail from that station up to the post office. And I think one of the last ones when they quit, was Grover Snodgrass. In fact, I know he was. He use to pick up the mail and take it up to the post office. That's where they dropped it off.
DW So, the business, was feed?
SR We had, well they were International Harvester dealers.
DW O.k., so…
SR That was at the main building. Not only that, they handled New Holland, Ontario Drills, oh golly, you name it, I think they handled it. Everything, but John Deere.
DW [Laughs]
SR We were International dealers. And then the feed business was down in the old, well we always called it the Old Cardiff Station. And they manufactured, and they had a Robinson Brothers Feed that they put up. It supplied the farmers. And Mr. Jamison Adams was our millman; lived in Cardiff. And he's Jerry Baxter's grandfather.
DW [Laughs]
SR And he was, he was our millman. He had one arm, and did a, lifted bags. I've seen him pick up a bag with his arm and that hook and it was the heaviest, I mean it was something else. He had a hook on his arm.
DW [Laughs]
SR But he was a wonderful person.
DW Hmm.
SR A really nice person.
DW So um, how long was it Robinson Brothers? I mean for…
SR Well, it was Robinson Brothers when Charles's father died in, (what year was that), 1947. And Charlie of course then went into business as a partner. And his Uncle Arthur was the other partner. And then they continued to operate until 1979. Well, Uncle Arthur died, and then Joe came into business as a partner, his son Joe. And then 1979, after the boys had graduated from college, they decided to combine with Manifolds of New Park. So, they sold everything. Now Charlie and Joe were getting to the point, you know near retirement, and the boys were going to take over. Well, they decided to try it for ten years. And they tried it for ten years, and at that time, you don't remember I'm sure, but I do. International Harvester went on strike, everything, the economy kind of bottom went out of it. So the boys stayed at M&R for ten years, and they went out. They were both college graduates, and they decided to use their education. So they gave up and went out and let somebody else have the worries.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it was, it was a real worry then.
DW Hmm.
SR Well, you were getting into the time when dealers were going, combining, getting big, big, big. They would have gotten big, but who wants the headaches?
DW Right.
SR That's what it was, it really was. We use to thank the Lord every time we went by that place that they had gotten out of it.
DW Hmm.
SR It was rough.
DW Well what did the, what did the building become later, in the later years, closer to the time when it burned?
SR Robinson Brothers building?
DW Yeah. What it…
SR Oh my gosh it had most everything in there. Somebody had an office there, and what else did they do? [pause] Other than…Sam Jones, Sam Jones used it for storage. Sam Jones owned it, bought it, and I don't remember that it became anything except a little office here and there. And then when, I don't even know who bought it in the end, who had it. I really don't cause it… We never used… we used the first floor. The second floor was loaded with antiques, things I own. You know, this came out of…[Laughter] from, from the mill.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Ah, and people stored things, you know, they had extra furniture and that type thing. But other than that, they had a, they had a, it was a, it was a good supply for the farmers and a lot of big… they supplied the whole northern area of Harford County and York County, southern York County.
DW So the, the place where you set up housekeeping, is that still there?
SR Where I, where Charlie and I went?
DW Yes.
SR Yeah. Where we, we went to, we moved into a little apartment over Proctor's Store which was on the corner where Bill Proctor and, Earl and Zilla Proctor lived there. The store was on this one side and the, Earl and Zilla lived in the other side, and they turned the second floor into an apartment. That's where we started housekeeping.
DW Mmm hmm. Now that would have been?
SR 1941.
DW And that was the building that um, Sebrings Hardware's was in there later years?
SR: No, no. No, no.
DW Wrong building.
SR It's up on the corner near Dave Glenn's dental office.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That was Proctor's store on that corner. Where, where the one next to us where Sebring's were. That was the Sidwell Hardware Store.
DW Oh, o.k. Well, I…
SR Sidwell's had been there for years, were there for years and years.
DW O.k. Well, that's what I got confused about because…
SR Now, now…
DW I know Harvey Proctor Sidwell. [Laughs]
SR Yeah right, right, right.
DW O.k.
SR Yeah. Anyhow, we lived, we were in Cardiff. We never, I never left Pennsylvania. I voted in Maryland my first time. I was twenty-one years old.
DW Mmm.
SR Of course we could vote, couldn't vote until we were twenty-one.
DW So, um after the apartment, next…
SR Well then, we had, we decided we'd move up the street. Al Peale was manager at Green Marble. And he lived in a double house that belonged to Frank Day's mother, and we moved, when they moved out. Al left the company. I don't know what changes were made, whether he retired or what. But anyhow, he left, so we rented where they lived. And moved, Frank Day's mother owned it. She lived next door. So we went to housekeeping there and again we moved, that was another move that we made. And then in 1940…
DW Now, is that double still there?
SR Yes. That house is still there.
DW Um hmm.
SR I don't know, I don't know who lives there anymore.
DW O.k.
SR In 1947, Charlie's father passed away. His mother had died in 1946; they were young. She was only fifty-two, and his father was only fifty-seven. And, of course, Charlie was an only child, so we moved into their house, and we lived there thirty, thirty-some years, that we lived in Cardiff altogether, which was about thirty-three years. So that is where we lived.
DW Now, I, I, in the write-up that Mrs. Atkin did, there was a reference to a tunnel from the Green Marble running under your house. Any…
SR Tunnel?
DW Yeah.
SR I don't remember that.
DW No tunnels. O.k.
SR It might have, Charlie may have know about that. I don't remember any tunnel. No, I don't even recall that.
DW O.k.
SR I don't know where she got that information.
DW O.k. [Laughter] Anything about, anything about the Green Marble Company that you remember?
SR Well, of course the Green Marble Company was there for the whole time that we lived there. Golly, many a nights you would hear the water running and the grinding. See they polished the stone at night. Those machines ran all night long. Well, probably ran twenty-four hours a day.
DW Right.
SR But, I think the biggest memory I have of that is warning our kids never to go near the Green Stone Quarry. Cause for years there was nothing around it.
DW Yeah, it's all fenced now.
SR Now it's fenced.
DW To keep you out.
SR Oh my, I looked over the board fence one time, looked down, and whoever was in the bottom looked like a little, little tiny dot almost.
DW [Laughs]
SR Well, three hundred and some feet down.
DW Right. Now that, I was doing some research on the area one time and actually I think it was your son, Donny…
SR Donny
DW that told me that right where the Green Marble Company is, was called Mine Hill in the old days.
SR Mine, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR Yeah, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR And when you were talking about the, talking to Don, Gary and Mervin took the water out, drew the water out of the old quarry. And they went down. Gary took Don down in that bucket. I didn't know this until afterwards. Thank goodness I didn't.
DW [Laughs]
SR And Don said, now the tunnel went back under what we called south, not south, Gobbler's Knob, the tunnel from the marble. He said it was like a huge green marble cathedral.
DW Oh.
SR Back in there. And it went, there's a big vein of it, I'm sure. But you know, you know exactly the reason why they can't get it out anymore. It's, number one the water filled up the hole, and number two the old marble polishers…Melvin Cantler was the last one who worked for Green Marble, and that could do that kind of work. Now there, there, I think there are marble people around over the country. But this was Green Marble's problem. No one wanted to work in it, and, and there was no sale. I mean, the green marble is used all over the United States, you know that.
DW Right.
SR Smithsonian, and Don just, there was an article in this past Sunday paper about it being in Constitution Hall, a piece of the marble. It's in the last Sunday's Sun Paper.
DW Right.
SR So, I cut it out and gave it to him, or I'd show it to you.
DW Right.
SR And it was used, well you can go into a lot of buildings and find it.
DW Empire State Building, I think has some…
SR Yes, it has it. And, let's see, and the Congressional Library, I think it has some.
DW Yeah.
SR Just various places and you go around, around here you'll find banks that have counters. Well look out at Forest Hill. They have green marble there. A gentleman called me and wanted to know what marble was worth.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, "I can't tell you what marble is worth." If you go to a sale and you buy a piece of marble and you get it for five hundred dollars, that's what it's worth. [Laughter] You can't put a price on it.
DW Right.
SR It's like our slate clock in Delta. You can't put a price on that clock.
DW Right.
SR And it's amazing how, you know what determines the price of something.
DW Sure. How much money you got that day.
SR Yeah, right. I have, see I have that marble top. I have one downstairs, a round one. I wouldn't take a thousand dollars.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR See, that to me, that's what there're worth. [Laughs]
DW Now just for our listeners now, Gobbler's Knob is the little hill there where Tom Super Thrift was, Whiteford Enterprise, that..
SR Well, yeah.
DW that section.
SR All those houses along that side going down, coming in toward the Green Marble.
DW Right.
SR That was called Gobbler's Knob.
DW Right. There's actually an alley back there called Green Stone…
SR Yeah, Mmm hmm.
DW Lane or something.
SR And then of course the lane goes by, goes through, and then goes by one of the oldest houses in the area where Marshall Heaps, Heaps Oil Company is. That's one of the oldest houses and then the next one up is where Mr. Joe Johnson lived. It's another old house back in there.
DW Hmm.
SR And they lived there for years. They were original Welsh constructed.
DW Yeah. Now that's the, the building where Heaps Oil is.
SR Uh huh.
DW That's a double.
SR That's a double.
DW But that's not the double that you lived in.
SR No, no, no.
DW O.k.
SR No, no, no. We lived, our home was on the corner, actually where Green Stone Marble, Green Marble Road comes up, comes out, and then hits Main Street. And we were just next to what use to be old Southern States and then became the Post Office.
DW Hmm.
SR And there was Proctor's store. Proctor, Bill Proctor, well his father and mother had it first. Then he had it, and then we came on down…see Doctor Wilhelm's little building was built after, really after I, we left there. Then I'm going into town now.
DW Right.
SR And there was another store where Mattie Amoss, now Mattie Amoss was Mattie Dooley. And her husband had a store there. And next to them was Gus Lacky who had a barbershop. Now I'm still going down the street, cause we lived on the opposite side of the street. And then, let's see, Myrtle Fox, and then where the apartment building that belonged to Dick Heaps. There were several, oh I can remember Marguerite Wilson had a beauty shop there, and there were various things. It's still there. And then of course the next building is the Masonic Building. That's on Main Street. And Masonic, Masons always met upstairs, but the bottom part had apartments in it, there were two apartments down there. And then you go on down the street a little farther and you came to the Grimms Hotel. It's the only place that I remember that you had, that they had beer in Harford, in Northern, in Cardiff.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Now that's been a good many years ago.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then of course Dick Heaps' place was next, the Ford agency. And then there was a little store, ___________ Dunlap had, ____________ and Grant Dunlap. It was a little store, just a little building. It's gone now.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That was between the Heaps building and the Dooley building. And the Dooley building, of course, was built right on the line. As a matter of fact, I guess it would be all right if I say this, the line went through the office. And Mr. Dooley kept his desk in Maryland because the taxes were cheaper in Maryland then they were in Pennsylvania.
DW [Laughs]
SR Now that's the story, they might not like it, but that was the truth that went around. And here, another thing, the line went through our feed building. And our meters and everything were in Maryland. We had Maryland licenses on our trucks because we had a Cardiff, Maryland address.
DW Right.
SR Well, about a year before we closed up, or two years before we closed up a State Trooper stopped one of the truck drivers, and I don't know how it came about, but found out that we were, our trucks were being housed in Pennsylvania but had Maryland licenses.
DW [Laughs]
SR So they had to spend about two thousand dollars to go, change the license. [Laughter] So you see that's what the line…I would just love to take my foot and just wipe it out.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it's a community, we are a community. And that's the way we should work. I was really disturbed over the fire company breaking off. It was always Delta Cardiff.
DW Right.
SR Always.
DW Right.
SR And we didn't care where the fires were. You went to help no matter what.
DW Right.
SR So, now it's a little bit like a Union, you know, you don't…
DW [Laughs]
SR You can't go from one Union to the other, you do your in trouble, I mean to help somebody. [Laughs]
DW Right. Anything else coming down Main Street? Uh…
SR Yeah.
DW We're coming south?
SR Yeah, we're coming south and we're on, I guess you would call it the north side.
DW O.k.
SR Coming in from Main Street. On the opposite side if we go, let's see, we can't back up. We lived on the opposite side of the street almost across, kind of catty-cornered from the Masonic Building. And then two doors down from us your Uncle Mac had a Barber Shop in later years.
DW Right. And that was an old post office too, wasn't it?
SR Yes, well, it was a post office.
DW Right?
SR Yeah, a post office after he left. Yeah.
DW Hmm.
SR He was, he was there first. Cause he did the boy's hair the first time.
DW [Laughs]
SR I made him take his white jacket off because they were scared to death with anybody, with any one who had a white jacket.
DW [Laughs]
SR So he took his jacket off and they had no problem, because they thought he was a doctor. [Laughter] And then on down the street a couple houses where Doctor Arthur practiced. Now that was Helen Heap's father, and he, in fact he even delivered me. And he'd been around a long time. And then you came on down the street and the next building would have been the old theater. And you don't remember that. The old Delta Cardiff Theater and underneath, it was two stories, and of course I went there as a kid. The other one was only open on weekends, the one that was in Delta. This was open, you know, through the week. Oh, I use to love to go. Mr. Joe Johnson ran the video, what do you call it…
DW The movie.
SR Movie, and showed that. And some time would help him was a Mr. Whittaker, I can't think of his first name from up in Delta. But anyway, underneath was the first, the Cardiff homemakers had a little library in one corner. I don't know who was there before. Next is where Doctor Hunt first began his practice.
DW Mmm hmm. This is, this is what became Reese's Pool Hall?
SR: No.
DW No?
SR This is next to Reeses…
DW: Oh, next to the pumpkin…
SR The pool hall was there too. I'll get to that.
DW O.k., o.k.
SR He was in one end, then was Dick Reese's Pool Hall, and then was a restaurant that Ethel and Smoker Norris ran.
DW Oh. [Laughs]
SR And I can't think of what, who was with her. It was Pat Kilgore's mother and I can't think what her name was. It'll come to me after a while. They had a nice restaurant there.
DW Mmm.
SR You'd come out of the movies and go in. You could get a hamburger for a quarter.
DW [Laughs]
SR You could get a sundae for fifteen cents, you could get a coke for a nickel. A hot dog was probably ten or fifteen cents, and a meal, thirty-five cents. If you paid fifty cents, you were paying a lot.
DW [Laughs] Now, that library you were talking about, it's just been in the last month that somebody had a book that had a stamp. And I think it was actually called the Mason-Dixon Library, wasn't it?
SR I think the Cardiff Homemakers first, I mean it was a lone library that they had. You know they weren't associated with anyone.
DW O.k.
SR And then I don't know where it advanced from there, except we always said that that's where it had it's beginning. Because the next time, next thing we had was the book mobile. And that was, we didn't get that until about 1943, 4, somewhere around there. Dorothy Glackin started that. And that was the first service, library service that we had in the community. Dorothy was a wonderful librarian. She started libraries in schools and of course she had the bookmobile, and there were just several things that she was innovative with and had gotten started. Well, then they had started building libraries. They built Bel Air. The first library was in the old Methodist Church in Bel Air, near Harrison's store, there was an old Methodist Church.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I took Carol there when she was just a little girl. It would have been about 1943.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then they built a library, and then from then it expanded. And of course I have been interested in libraries all my life, and I love to read. And eventually, I don't know how I got on the Board; I didn't know anything about it. I served twelve years on the Harford County Library Board. And while I was there, I started agitating for something in the upper end of the county. Well, I went to a capital, we had a meeting one day and they brought out this capital plan, and here was a picture of, a drawing of Harford County. And here were all these libraries they were going to build down the southern end of the county, and there was nothing up in the fourth and fifth district. And I jumped up and slammed the paper down on the table and I said "You don't have anything up here."
DW [Laughs]
SR So they said well, now they had a committee, well, we said we'd look around. Well, it took us several years before we found a place that we could have a library. We had, we tried the schools, but we were five years too late. We thought maybe we could have one next to the school, or near the school, or incorporated in the school. We were five years too late because their plans were already made.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So anyhow, I kept agitating away, and I'd go to the council meetings, and Johnny Schaefer would say, "Must be something coming up about libraries tonight."
DW [Laughs]
SR I just kept on and on. Took us twenty-five years to get a library, but we got it finally. And it all happened almost, it was just a quirk. Eunice Silver wanted to sell this piece of property. Now that's out in Whiteford. It's a piece of property between her and the Whiteford Post Office area. And I found out about it, and I knew Frank Day, her lawyer. And I got a hold of Frank and I said, "Frank that would make a wonderful library." And of course Paul Glackin had, was the, what do ya call, realtor who had it. And I talked to Paul; well they talked to Eunice, and it took us a while. Went to the…I'll never forget going to the office; Eunice called me every morning of her life.
DW [Laughs]
SR Thinking, well aren't you going to do something? Well, you know things don't move very fast.
DW Right.
SR And I happened, I was working for the York Daily Record at the time, and use to cover the farm bureau meetings. And they were meeting down at the Blue Bell. I had gone a little early, and Charlie Anderson walked in. And he said, "Well hi Mrs. Robinson, you gotten that library up in Whiteford yet"?
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said how in the heck can we get a library in Whiteford if we can't even get ten cents to get an option on the land. He said, "What are you talking about"? I said well there's a piece of land up there that we could get, that would make a nice library if we could get, you know, the money or get… You had to go through, what's the name of that? Bill Cooper was Chairman of it, some kind of a committee, anyhow, that you had to go through. He said, "Call my office the next morning." I'm not kidding you, right hand up; I did not sleep all night long.
DW [Laughs]
SR I got up and I called his office and he turned me over to Roger Niles. And I talked to Roger and I said, "Now I'm calling Frank Day and I want you two to get together," because Frank was her lawyer. They got together and Roger says, "Well I think we can come up with some money for that." She didn't ask a big amount for it, because Bill Cooper said to me, I can't think of the name of that group that meets, that decides whether they're going to buy. But anyway, he looked at me, and he said, "You tell that woman, "Thank you for not trying to rip us off."
DW [Laughs]
SR And I'll never forget it! He got it, we got it before, because Fallston came up the same time, and they approved us, that we could go ahead and get this land and then put a, they put a trailer there.
DW Yes.
SR Well that went on for a number of years and the next thing I found out that they had taken us off the Capital Improvement Plan. The Board.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And boy I got a group together and we started, and we just kept right on until, and we went to every meeting, and they knew we were there. Am I talking too long?
DW No, no, you're doing fine.
SR All right. They, I have to tell you this story. They a, we kept going to the Board Meetings and going to the Board Meetings. And, how'd this come about? Oh, I know. I said something to the Director, and he says, "Well we don't have any money." And I went right across the street to Habern Freeman's office and asked to see him. And we had met with him before; a group of us had gone down. And I said Habern; "They say we don't have the money for our library. And he said, "You do have your money; it's there." I went right back to the Director.
DW [Laughs]
SR And said the money is there and had been there for six months.
DW Wow!
SR And then he got, well see at that time they let the Director, I mean the Director had a lot to do with it. And he was just… I don't know why he was dragging his feet. But we did get organized. But then it was like Murphy's Law. We got, we had to take the lowest contract, you know, bid I mean.
DW Yeah.
SR And everything went wrong that could go wrong with that library. It took two years to build.
DW [Laughs]
SR But thank goodness we have it! [Laughs]
DW Yes, yes.
SR I have, I've always been of the belief that there isn't an entity of any kind that you get more money for your taxes, than you do in a library.
DW Right.
SR And the fact that it also serves from the tiniest child, even to prenatal [laughs] children before there're born, to the oldest person.
DW Right.
SR So, when you think of that, your getting, you're really getting the benefit of your tax money. I have no idea what the cost is now. It use to be, and they probably will correct me on that, but it's around fifty dollars, maybe more of your tax money that goes to libraries.
DW Mmm.
SR And I can't think of a better, better place to put your money, [laughs] your tax money.
DW Right. Well, certainly it's a good place for kids, they get educated…
SR Oh…
DW They are not out getting in trouble…
SR That's right.
DW Reduces the cost of police…
SR Everything.
DW You know, I mean it's just a big cycle.
SR Well, I organized, and I got a little help from a person in Bel Air who had had this experience, organized the Friends up here before we had the library. And we started out with the Friends of the Library, and we have raised and given, I would say, well we still have some money. We haven't given all of it. But I would say about $75,000.
DW Wow.
SR Just through our Friends, through the little, or you know the little fundraisers that we have. And we have given…now this past year we supported five programs. Summer Readings Programs cost us a thousand dollars.
DW Hmm.
SR And we can't think of anything better of a use for our money. We helped, they needed shelving, you know…This is not funded. These are things that are not funded, that the County can't give them. So, we gave, let's see, we gave five hundred, it was around five hundred for this new shelving. Plus we're also going to sponsor the Adult Reading Program this winter. So that will be another…And then every once in a while we'll come up with something. For instance we just had a, memorials made for a couple people in the community. And we have over a thousand dollars and they suggested that we get talking books and large print. Which is what we try to keep a supply in; they use a lot of them. So we'll give about fifteen hundred dollars to the Board and that will, we indicate that it's to be used on talking books and

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Transcript

SARA ROBINSON
Harford Living Treasure
Hello, this is Doug Washburn, for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 29 October 2003, and I'm with one of Harford's Living Treasures, Sara Robinson of Whiteford. Born just above the Mason Dixon line, Mrs. Robinson has lived in Harford County for more than sixty years. Mrs. Robinson's nomination was made by, June Atkin. Mrs. Robinson, thank you for taking time with me today and for sharing your memories for our county citizens to enjoy. Welcome.
SR Thank you.
DW [Laughs] So, I know you were born in Pennsylvania, but, where and when?
SR I was born just over the line, just north of Delta, about a mile, on April 8, 1921. I'm the oldest, eldest of a family of five children. My father and mother were… No one knew him, his right name, they called him Babe. Babe and Nell Wiley. And he was a handicapped man. He had… He is a man to be admired in many, many ways. He raised a family of five children. He owned three farms, and he was a, he was a go-getter. With all his, his leg was off at his hip, he could do anything, but run. And, if you got in trouble, and he said, "come here", you better go, because it was going to be worse if he caught up with you. [Laughter]
DW Now you said a mile north of Delta.
SR Uh huh.
DW Is that still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes.
DW That all is, still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes, well really over the hill. Takes it's a mile to get there, but it's just over the hill where I was born. My mother taught school at Mount Holly.
DW Oh.
SR And I don't know whether that's when she met my dad, or not. But a, she met him and she has two pupils who are still living, Dorothy Kilgore, and Betty Griffith. And not long ago they told me that they were in first grade…Am I talking o.k?
DW Oh yes, fine.
SR They were in first grade and at Christmas time they had a, they use to have little entertainments, Christmas entertainments?
DW Uh huh.
SR And they all gathered at the school, of course, for a Christmas entertainment. And my mother never showed up. The next day they found out that my father had been in an accident and had his leg taken off and she had gone to Philadelphia. Well in those days, there were no telephones, you had no lighting, you had no way of communicating.
DW Right.
SR And they didn't find out until the next day.
DW [Laughs] So did your, did your family, your mom and dad; did they always live on the Pennsylvania side?
SR Oh, yes.
DW O.k.
SR My dad was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k.
SR His, my father was Babe Wiley.
DW Um hum.
SR And all his family settled in Peach Bottom Township. In fact they call it Wiley Hollow, down near Valley School.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That's where, that's where he was born and reared.
DW So that wouldn't be too far from Mount Nebo Church.
SR No, no.
DW Just across the road.
SR But then he moved. Now, then they moved to the top of the Forge Hill which was in Lower Chanceford Township.
DW Ah.
SR Just over. But, I was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k. But you went to school in Lower Chanceford.
SR In Lower Chanceford.
DW: O.k. Cause I've seen you had a lot of the…
SR Oh, yes.
DW community hall activities where you have the photos of Lower Chanceford.
SR Uh huh. Well, I just got my certificates out. I never missed a day of school in my life.
DW Oh, wow! [Laughs]
SR In fact I have two, I had two brothers and two sisters. None of us ever missed a day until my youngest brother was to graduate, and one month before he graduated, he got the measles.
DW [Laughs]
SR We had a record up until then. My mother figured how many thousands of lunches she had packed.
DW [Laughs]
SR Cause we went to a one-room school. We went, they took, I went by horse. I went by… We had an old sleigh. I remember my dad taking us to school in a Bobsled, over the fences when the snow was deep. Then we graduated to a, the first one, we called it the dogcart. It was a, like a small truck with wire on the sides and leather came down. Then, the next one I remember we called it the bread wagon. It looked like a bread wagon. [Laughter] And it was very dangerous. It had a bench in the middle where the kids sat on the, the boys sat on the bench and the girls on the side. And then they went from that to an old hearse. I mean it was, see we didn't have buses then.
DW Mm hmm.
SR You just whatever, and people, local people took the children to school. So, it was interesting. [Laughs]
DW So, what brought you to Harford County side?
SR Well, of course when I got married. I met Charlie and we were married in May, May 3, 1941. And I moved to Cardiff. At the time I was working in Harrisburg for the medical and dental boards where we licensed doctors and dentists. And at that time the refugee doctors were coming to this country. They had no credentials. They had a terrible time. They'd come to our office and we'd help them get their credentials and get things lined up for them. It was a very interesting, very interesting work, place to work, too.
DW Hmm.
SR Anyhow, we were married May 3, 1941, at Slate Ridge Church. And we did that because he was going to be drafted, and we decided to get married before he was drafted. And of course we could get a three-day license in Maryland, where Pennsylvania took you two weeks.
DW Ah.
SR So that was one of those quickies. [Laughter]
DW So now when you say Slate Ridge Church, this would be the one that's on Main Street.
SR In Cardiff.
DW In, right next to the Mason Dixon Line.
SR Right. That's right.
DW O.k., so…
SR Slate Ridge Presbyterian Church.
DW Mmm hmm. Right. So um, when you got married, you quit working in Harrisburg?
SR I quit working in Harrisburg after I gave them a couple months notice. I couldn't quit right way.
DW Right.
SR Because I hated to walk out. But, I came back to, we came to Cardiff and we started housekeeping in a little apartment in Cardiff. And Straley Greer was our bookkeeper at Robinson Brothers. He was leaving and they asked me to take his place, so I went to work at Robinson Brothers when I came home.
DW Ah.
SR And that was the, really the last… Well I worked until our oldest daughter was born. Carole was born August 1942.
DW So, your husband already had an established business when you got married?
SR Oh yes. Oh yes.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR Robinson Brothers. Robinson Brothers began with his father in 1916, and then he had his brother, Uncle Arthur, we call him. He came in with him a couple of years and Robinson Brothers had been there since that time, 1916, bought the old Gailey building. And Charlie went to, graduated from Slate Ridge School, and went to the University of Maryland. And, there's a story to that. On his 21st birthday, he was a senior, on his 21st birthday he came home and said to his dad, "I'm not going back to school." His father wanted him to be a doctor and he was in a pre-med course. And Charlie did not want to be a doctor. So he came home and started with Robinson Brothers. He was there ever since. [Laughter]
DW Now that would be the building that burned not too long ago.
SR Yes. Mmm hmm.
DW Last year or so.
SR Yes, last Christmas. Last Christmas.
DW O.k., that was…
SR That was an old, old building, and a, and a firetrap too. There was no doubt about that. But, that's where they had their business. And then they had, down at the railroad station, the Cardiff Station, is where the feed mill was.
DW O.k.
SR And…
DW So we're…
SR Pa Adams…
DW So we're right at the intersection of Dooley Road and Main Street.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW And the Robinson Brother building would have been just on the north side.
SR That's right.
DW And the train station would have been just on the south side.
SR Yes, going down, what's that road? Dooley Road.
DW Dooley Road. O.k.
SR Dooley Road, just right at the railroad tracks. Because they had a siding where they brought in molasses and feed and of course they dropped the mail off. When the train was operating, that's where the mail was dropped off. And Charlie, as a boy, at one time carried the mail from that station up to the post office. And I think one of the last ones when they quit, was Grover Snodgrass. In fact, I know he was. He use to pick up the mail and take it up to the post office. That's where they dropped it off.
DW So, the business, was feed?
SR We had, well they were International Harvester dealers.
DW O.k., so…
SR That was at the main building. Not only that, they handled New Holland, Ontario Drills, oh golly, you name it, I think they handled it. Everything, but John Deere.
DW [Laughs]
SR We were International dealers. And then the feed business was down in the old, well we always called it the Old Cardiff Station. And they manufactured, and they had a Robinson Brothers Feed that they put up. It supplied the farmers. And Mr. Jamison Adams was our millman; lived in Cardiff. And he's Jerry Baxter's grandfather.
DW [Laughs]
SR And he was, he was our millman. He had one arm, and did a, lifted bags. I've seen him pick up a bag with his arm and that hook and it was the heaviest, I mean it was something else. He had a hook on his arm.
DW [Laughs]
SR But he was a wonderful person.
DW Hmm.
SR A really nice person.
DW So um, how long was it Robinson Brothers? I mean for…
SR Well, it was Robinson Brothers when Charles's father died in, (what year was that), 1947. And Charlie of course then went into business as a partner. And his Uncle Arthur was the other partner. And then they continued to operate until 1979. Well, Uncle Arthur died, and then Joe came into business as a partner, his son Joe. And then 1979, after the boys had graduated from college, they decided to combine with Manifolds of New Park. So, they sold everything. Now Charlie and Joe were getting to the point, you know near retirement, and the boys were going to take over. Well, they decided to try it for ten years. And they tried it for ten years, and at that time, you don't remember I'm sure, but I do. International Harvester went on strike, everything, the economy kind of bottom went out of it. So the boys stayed at M&R for ten years, and they went out. They were both college graduates, and they decided to use their education. So they gave up and went out and let somebody else have the worries.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it was, it was a real worry then.
DW Hmm.
SR Well, you were getting into the time when dealers were going, combining, getting big, big, big. They would have gotten big, but who wants the headaches?
DW Right.
SR That's what it was, it really was. We use to thank the Lord every time we went by that place that they had gotten out of it.
DW Hmm.
SR It was rough.
DW Well what did the, what did the building become later, in the later years, closer to the time when it burned?
SR Robinson Brothers building?
DW Yeah. What it…
SR Oh my gosh it had most everything in there. Somebody had an office there, and what else did they do? [pause] Other than…Sam Jones, Sam Jones used it for storage. Sam Jones owned it, bought it, and I don't remember that it became anything except a little office here and there. And then when, I don't even know who bought it in the end, who had it. I really don't cause it… We never used… we used the first floor. The second floor was loaded with antiques, things I own. You know, this came out of…[Laughter] from, from the mill.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Ah, and people stored things, you know, they had extra furniture and that type thing. But other than that, they had a, they had a, it was a, it was a good supply for the farmers and a lot of big… they supplied the whole northern area of Harford County and York County, southern York County.
DW So the, the place where you set up housekeeping, is that still there?
SR Where I, where Charlie and I went?
DW Yes.
SR Yeah. Where we, we went to, we moved into a little apartment over Proctor's Store which was on the corner where Bill Proctor and, Earl and Zilla Proctor lived there. The store was on this one side and the, Earl and Zilla lived in the other side, and they turned the second floor into an apartment. That's where we started housekeeping.
DW Mmm hmm. Now that would have been?
SR 1941.
DW And that was the building that um, Sebrings Hardware's was in there later years?
SR: No, no. No, no.
DW Wrong building.
SR It's up on the corner near Dave Glenn's dental office.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That was Proctor's store on that corner. Where, where the one next to us where Sebring's were. That was the Sidwell Hardware Store.
DW Oh, o.k. Well, I…
SR Sidwell's had been there for years, were there for years and years.
DW O.k. Well, that's what I got confused about because…
SR Now, now…
DW I know Harvey Proctor Sidwell. [Laughs]
SR Yeah right, right, right.
DW O.k.
SR Yeah. Anyhow, we lived, we were in Cardiff. We never, I never left Pennsylvania. I voted in Maryland my first time. I was twenty-one years old.
DW Mmm.
SR Of course we could vote, couldn't vote until we were twenty-one.
DW So, um after the apartment, next…
SR Well then, we had, we decided we'd move up the street. Al Peale was manager at Green Marble. And he lived in a double house that belonged to Frank Day's mother, and we moved, when they moved out. Al left the company. I don't know what changes were made, whether he retired or what. But anyhow, he left, so we rented where they lived. And moved, Frank Day's mother owned it. She lived next door. So we went to housekeeping there and again we moved, that was another move that we made. And then in 1940…
DW Now, is that double still there?
SR Yes. That house is still there.
DW Um hmm.
SR I don't know, I don't know who lives there anymore.
DW O.k.
SR In 1947, Charlie's father passed away. His mother had died in 1946; they were young. She was only fifty-two, and his father was only fifty-seven. And, of course, Charlie was an only child, so we moved into their house, and we lived there thirty, thirty-some years, that we lived in Cardiff altogether, which was about thirty-three years. So that is where we lived.
DW Now, I, I, in the write-up that Mrs. Atkin did, there was a reference to a tunnel from the Green Marble running under your house. Any…
SR Tunnel?
DW Yeah.
SR I don't remember that.
DW No tunnels. O.k.
SR It might have, Charlie may have know about that. I don't remember any tunnel. No, I don't even recall that.
DW O.k.
SR I don't know where she got that information.
DW O.k. [Laughter] Anything about, anything about the Green Marble Company that you remember?
SR Well, of course the Green Marble Company was there for the whole time that we lived there. Golly, many a nights you would hear the water running and the grinding. See they polished the stone at night. Those machines ran all night long. Well, probably ran twenty-four hours a day.
DW Right.
SR But, I think the biggest memory I have of that is warning our kids never to go near the Green Stone Quarry. Cause for years there was nothing around it.
DW Yeah, it's all fenced now.
SR Now it's fenced.
DW To keep you out.
SR Oh my, I looked over the board fence one time, looked down, and whoever was in the bottom looked like a little, little tiny dot almost.
DW [Laughs]
SR Well, three hundred and some feet down.
DW Right. Now that, I was doing some research on the area one time and actually I think it was your son, Donny…
SR Donny
DW that told me that right where the Green Marble Company is, was called Mine Hill in the old days.
SR Mine, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR Yeah, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR And when you were talking about the, talking to Don, Gary and Mervin took the water out, drew the water out of the old quarry. And they went down. Gary took Don down in that bucket. I didn't know this until afterwards. Thank goodness I didn't.
DW [Laughs]
SR And Don said, now the tunnel went back under what we called south, not south, Gobbler's Knob, the tunnel from the marble. He said it was like a huge green marble cathedral.
DW Oh.
SR Back in there. And it went, there's a big vein of it, I'm sure. But you know, you know exactly the reason why they can't get it out anymore. It's, number one the water filled up the hole, and number two the old marble polishers…Melvin Cantler was the last one who worked for Green Marble, and that could do that kind of work. Now there, there, I think there are marble people around over the country. But this was Green Marble's problem. No one wanted to work in it, and, and there was no sale. I mean, the green marble is used all over the United States, you know that.
DW Right.
SR Smithsonian, and Don just, there was an article in this past Sunday paper about it being in Constitution Hall, a piece of the marble. It's in the last Sunday's Sun Paper.
DW Right.
SR So, I cut it out and gave it to him, or I'd show it to you.
DW Right.
SR And it was used, well you can go into a lot of buildings and find it.
DW Empire State Building, I think has some…
SR Yes, it has it. And, let's see, and the Congressional Library, I think it has some.
DW Yeah.
SR Just various places and you go around, around here you'll find banks that have counters. Well look out at Forest Hill. They have green marble there. A gentleman called me and wanted to know what marble was worth.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, "I can't tell you what marble is worth." If you go to a sale and you buy a piece of marble and you get it for five hundred dollars, that's what it's worth. [Laughter] You can't put a price on it.
DW Right.
SR It's like our slate clock in Delta. You can't put a price on that clock.
DW Right.
SR And it's amazing how, you know what determines the price of something.
DW Sure. How much money you got that day.
SR Yeah, right. I have, see I have that marble top. I have one downstairs, a round one. I wouldn't take a thousand dollars.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR See, that to me, that's what there're worth. [Laughs]
DW Now just for our listeners now, Gobbler's Knob is the little hill there where Tom Super Thrift was, Whiteford Enterprise, that..
SR Well, yeah.
DW that section.
SR All those houses along that side going down, coming in toward the Green Marble.
DW Right.
SR That was called Gobbler's Knob.
DW Right. There's actually an alley back there called Green Stone…
SR Yeah, Mmm hmm.
DW Lane or something.
SR And then of course the lane goes by, goes through, and then goes by one of the oldest houses in the area where Marshall Heaps, Heaps Oil Company is. That's one of the oldest houses and then the next one up is where Mr. Joe Johnson lived. It's another old house back in there.
DW Hmm.
SR And they lived there for years. They were original Welsh constructed.
DW Yeah. Now that's the, the building where Heaps Oil is.
SR Uh huh.
DW That's a double.
SR That's a double.
DW But that's not the double that you lived in.
SR No, no, no.
DW O.k.
SR No, no, no. We lived, our home was on the corner, actually where Green Stone Marble, Green Marble Road comes up, comes out, and then hits Main Street. And we were just next to what use to be old Southern States and then became the Post Office.
DW Hmm.
SR And there was Proctor's store. Proctor, Bill Proctor, well his father and mother had it first. Then he had it, and then we came on down…see Doctor Wilhelm's little building was built after, really after I, we left there. Then I'm going into town now.
DW Right.
SR And there was another store where Mattie Amoss, now Mattie Amoss was Mattie Dooley. And her husband had a store there. And next to them was Gus Lacky who had a barbershop. Now I'm still going down the street, cause we lived on the opposite side of the street. And then, let's see, Myrtle Fox, and then where the apartment building that belonged to Dick Heaps. There were several, oh I can remember Marguerite Wilson had a beauty shop there, and there were various things. It's still there. And then of course the next building is the Masonic Building. That's on Main Street. And Masonic, Masons always met upstairs, but the bottom part had apartments in it, there were two apartments down there. And then you go on down the street a little farther and you came to the Grimms Hotel. It's the only place that I remember that you had, that they had beer in Harford, in Northern, in Cardiff.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Now that's been a good many years ago.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then of course Dick Heaps' place was next, the Ford agency. And then there was a little store, ___________ Dunlap had, ____________ and Grant Dunlap. It was a little store, just a little building. It's gone now.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That was between the Heaps building and the Dooley building. And the Dooley building, of course, was built right on the line. As a matter of fact, I guess it would be all right if I say this, the line went through the office. And Mr. Dooley kept his desk in Maryland because the taxes were cheaper in Maryland then they were in Pennsylvania.
DW [Laughs]
SR Now that's the story, they might not like it, but that was the truth that went around. And here, another thing, the line went through our feed building. And our meters and everything were in Maryland. We had Maryland licenses on our trucks because we had a Cardiff, Maryland address.
DW Right.
SR Well, about a year before we closed up, or two years before we closed up a State Trooper stopped one of the truck drivers, and I don't know how it came about, but found out that we were, our trucks were being housed in Pennsylvania but had Maryland licenses.
DW [Laughs]
SR So they had to spend about two thousand dollars to go, change the license. [Laughter] So you see that's what the line…I would just love to take my foot and just wipe it out.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it's a community, we are a community. And that's the way we should work. I was really disturbed over the fire company breaking off. It was always Delta Cardiff.
DW Right.
SR Always.
DW Right.
SR And we didn't care where the fires were. You went to help no matter what.
DW Right.
SR So, now it's a little bit like a Union, you know, you don't…
DW [Laughs]
SR You can't go from one Union to the other, you do your in trouble, I mean to help somebody. [Laughs]
DW Right. Anything else coming down Main Street? Uh…
SR Yeah.
DW We're coming south?
SR Yeah, we're coming south and we're on, I guess you would call it the north side.
DW O.k.
SR Coming in from Main Street. On the opposite side if we go, let's see, we can't back up. We lived on the opposite side of the street almost across, kind of catty-cornered from the Masonic Building. And then two doors down from us your Uncle Mac had a Barber Shop in later years.
DW Right. And that was an old post office too, wasn't it?
SR Yes, well, it was a post office.
DW Right?
SR Yeah, a post office after he left. Yeah.
DW Hmm.
SR He was, he was there first. Cause he did the boy's hair the first time.
DW [Laughs]
SR I made him take his white jacket off because they were scared to death with anybody, with any one who had a white jacket.
DW [Laughs]
SR So he took his jacket off and they had no problem, because they thought he was a doctor. [Laughter] And then on down the street a couple houses where Doctor Arthur practiced. Now that was Helen Heap's father, and he, in fact he even delivered me. And he'd been around a long time. And then you came on down the street and the next building would have been the old theater. And you don't remember that. The old Delta Cardiff Theater and underneath, it was two stories, and of course I went there as a kid. The other one was only open on weekends, the one that was in Delta. This was open, you know, through the week. Oh, I use to love to go. Mr. Joe Johnson ran the video, what do you call it…
DW The movie.
SR Movie, and showed that. And some time would help him was a Mr. Whittaker, I can't think of his first name from up in Delta. But anyway, underneath was the first, the Cardiff homemakers had a little library in one corner. I don't know who was there before. Next is where Doctor Hunt first began his practice.
DW Mmm hmm. This is, this is what became Reese's Pool Hall?
SR: No.
DW No?
SR This is next to Reeses…
DW: Oh, next to the pumpkin…
SR The pool hall was there too. I'll get to that.
DW O.k., o.k.
SR He was in one end, then was Dick Reese's Pool Hall, and then was a restaurant that Ethel and Smoker Norris ran.
DW Oh. [Laughs]
SR And I can't think of what, who was with her. It was Pat Kilgore's mother and I can't think what her name was. It'll come to me after a while. They had a nice restaurant there.
DW Mmm.
SR You'd come out of the movies and go in. You could get a hamburger for a quarter.
DW [Laughs]
SR You could get a sundae for fifteen cents, you could get a coke for a nickel. A hot dog was probably ten or fifteen cents, and a meal, thirty-five cents. If you paid fifty cents, you were paying a lot.
DW [Laughs] Now, that library you were talking about, it's just been in the last month that somebody had a book that had a stamp. And I think it was actually called the Mason-Dixon Library, wasn't it?
SR I think the Cardiff Homemakers first, I mean it was a lone library that they had. You know they weren't associated with anyone.
DW O.k.
SR And then I don't know where it advanced from there, except we always said that that's where it had it's beginning. Because the next time, next thing we had was the book mobile. And that was, we didn't get that until about 1943, 4, somewhere around there. Dorothy Glackin started that. And that was the first service, library service that we had in the community. Dorothy was a wonderful librarian. She started libraries in schools and of course she had the bookmobile, and there were just several things that she was innovative with and had gotten started. Well, then they had started building libraries. They built Bel Air. The first library was in the old Methodist Church in Bel Air, near Harrison's store, there was an old Methodist Church.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I took Carol there when she was just a little girl. It would have been about 1943.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then they built a library, and then from then it expanded. And of course I have been interested in libraries all my life, and I love to read. And eventually, I don't know how I got on the Board; I didn't know anything about it. I served twelve years on the Harford County Library Board. And while I was there, I started agitating for something in the upper end of the county. Well, I went to a capital, we had a meeting one day and they brought out this capital plan, and here was a picture of, a drawing of Harford County. And here were all these libraries they were going to build down the southern end of the county, and there was nothing up in the fourth and fifth district. And I jumped up and slammed the paper down on the table and I said "You don't have anything up here."
DW [Laughs]
SR So they said well, now they had a committee, well, we said we'd look around. Well, it took us several years before we found a place that we could have a library. We had, we tried the schools, but we were five years too late. We thought maybe we could have one next to the school, or near the school, or incorporated in the school. We were five years too late because their plans were already made.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So anyhow, I kept agitating away, and I'd go to the council meetings, and Johnny Schaefer would say, "Must be something coming up about libraries tonight."
DW [Laughs]
SR I just kept on and on. Took us twenty-five years to get a library, but we got it finally. And it all happened almost, it was just a quirk. Eunice Silver wanted to sell this piece of property. Now that's out in Whiteford. It's a piece of property between her and the Whiteford Post Office area. And I found out about it, and I knew Frank Day, her lawyer. And I got a hold of Frank and I said, "Frank that would make a wonderful library." And of course Paul Glackin had, was the, what do ya call, realtor who had it. And I talked to Paul; well they talked to Eunice, and it took us a while. Went to the…I'll never forget going to the office; Eunice called me every morning of her life.
DW [Laughs]
SR Thinking, well aren't you going to do something? Well, you know things don't move very fast.
DW Right.
SR And I happened, I was working for the York Daily Record at the time, and use to cover the farm bureau meetings. And they were meeting down at the Blue Bell. I had gone a little early, and Charlie Anderson walked in. And he said, "Well hi Mrs. Robinson, you gotten that library up in Whiteford yet"?
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said how in the heck can we get a library in Whiteford if we can't even get ten cents to get an option on the land. He said, "What are you talking about"? I said well there's a piece of land up there that we could get, that would make a nice library if we could get, you know, the money or get… You had to go through, what's the name of that? Bill Cooper was Chairman of it, some kind of a committee, anyhow, that you had to go through. He said, "Call my office the next morning." I'm not kidding you, right hand up; I did not sleep all night long.
DW [Laughs]
SR I got up and I called his office and he turned me over to Roger Niles. And I talked to Roger and I said, "Now I'm calling Frank Day and I want you two to get together," because Frank was her lawyer. They got together and Roger says, "Well I think we can come up with some money for that." She didn't ask a big amount for it, because Bill Cooper said to me, I can't think of the name of that group that meets, that decides whether they're going to buy. But anyway, he looked at me, and he said, "You tell that woman, "Thank you for not trying to rip us off."
DW [Laughs]
SR And I'll never forget it! He got it, we got it before, because Fallston came up the same time, and they approved us, that we could go ahead and get this land and then put a, they put a trailer there.
DW Yes.
SR Well that went on for a number of years and the next thing I found out that they had taken us off the Capital Improvement Plan. The Board.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And boy I got a group together and we started, and we just kept right on until, and we went to every meeting, and they knew we were there. Am I talking too long?
DW No, no, you're doing fine.
SR All right. They, I have to tell you this story. They a, we kept going to the Board Meetings and going to the Board Meetings. And, how'd this come about? Oh, I know. I said something to the Director, and he says, "Well we don't have any money." And I went right across the street to Habern Freeman's office and asked to see him. And we had met with him before; a group of us had gone down. And I said Habern; "They say we don't have the money for our library. And he said, "You do have your money; it's there." I went right back to the Director.
DW [Laughs]
SR And said the money is there and had been there for six months.
DW Wow!
SR And then he got, well see at that time they let the Director, I mean the Director had a lot to do with it. And he was just… I don't know why he was dragging his feet. But we did get organized. But then it was like Murphy's Law. We got, we had to take the lowest contract, you know, bid I mean.
DW Yeah.
SR And everything went wrong that could go wrong with that library. It took two years to build.
DW [Laughs]
SR But thank goodness we have it! [Laughs]
DW Yes, yes.
SR I have, I've always been of the belief that there isn't an entity of any kind that you get more money for your taxes, than you do in a library.
DW Right.
SR And the fact that it also serves from the tiniest child, even to prenatal [laughs] children before there're born, to the oldest person.
DW Right.
SR So, when you think of that, your getting, you're really getting the benefit of your tax money. I have no idea what the cost is now. It use to be, and they probably will correct me on that, but it's around fifty dollars, maybe more of your tax money that goes to libraries.
DW Mmm.
SR And I can't think of a better, better place to put your money, [laughs] your tax money.
DW Right. Well, certainly it's a good place for kids, they get educated…
SR Oh…
DW They are not out getting in trouble…
SR That's right.
DW Reduces the cost of police…
SR Everything.
DW You know, I mean it's just a big cycle.
SR Well, I organized, and I got a little help from a person in Bel Air who had had this experience, organized the Friends up here before we had the library. And we started out with the Friends of the Library, and we have raised and given, I would say, well we still have some money. We haven't given all of it. But I would say about $75,000.
DW Wow.
SR Just through our Friends, through the little, or you know the little fundraisers that we have. And we have given…now this past year we supported five programs. Summer Readings Programs cost us a thousand dollars.
DW Hmm.
SR And we can't think of anything better of a use for our money. We helped, they needed shelving, you know…This is not funded. These are things that are not funded, that the County can't give them. So, we gave, let's see, we gave five hundred, it was around five hundred for this new shelving. Plus we're also going to sponsor the Adult Reading Program this winter. So that will be another…And then every once in a while we'll come up with something. For instance we just had a, memorials made for a couple people in the community. And we have over a thousand dollars and they suggested that we get talking books and large print. Which is what we try to keep a supply in; they use a lot of them. So we'll give about fifteen hundred dollars to the Board and that will, we indicate that it's to be used on talking books and large print books.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I am using large print books too. [Laughter] I hear some other people are. Oh…
DW O.k., so we went, we went north, we went north in Cardiff.
SR O.k.
DW On the Main Street.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW Back the other side?
SR Alright.
DW Or maybe south through Whiteford?
SR Lets see. Now lets come back to Whiteford. I had, well we had the Green Marble. We'd gone through that, you know. And I had mentioned Al Peale, Al Peale was the manager when I came, and then Glen Birley took his place. And I think Glen was there when it finally closed down. It was owned by some company, up in the New England states. I don't know. But, the green marble is a beautiful marble. There's just no question about it.
DW Right.
SR And they claim, it's not the only green marble, but it's the only green marble of that color. Some of its dark, you can go, you'll see some of its dark. When you look at it, you know it didn't come from Cardiff.
DW Mmm hmm. [Laughs]
SR You can almost tell. And, alright lets get back to…We're going through, after we leave the Green Marble and there at the Green Marble we had this… Southern States had a building which became the Post Office. And I think now its an apartment building. Coming on out through Cardiff at the top of the hill, Slate Ridge School on the left. And then, I helped organize the first PTA that they had.
DW Oh yeah?
SR Yeah. They didn't have, Mr. Samsel ran every thing, and he didn't like the PTA, I guess.
DW [Laughs]
SR I don't know what else. But anyhow, Luther Heaps and I did that. And then coming on out through Whiteford, somebody said, told me that there was a little candy store on the right. I don't, I think Townsley's had it but I don't, it wasn't there very long. And then you came to Glasgow and McKinley Garage. And that's where… Well I don't know what's there now. Koermer, Chris Koermer had something there in that building.
DW O.k.
SR Then next to that was Russ McKinley's barbershop.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And then you came on to Reamer's Store. I can tell you a little tale about it… You didn't…
DW Which, which today is the Post Office.
SR Which today is the Post Office. Yeah.
DW O.k.
SR Hank Reamer was the owner of it. Hank and Gus, his brother. I don't know if he was there much or not anyhow. But anyway, I didn't deal there because I dealt mostly in Delta. And I was very active in the North Harford PTA and of course I was always one to go around to get ads for this and ads for that. So one day I walked in and he was there and he looked up and he said, "Well how much do you want today"? [Laughter] So you knew, I wasn't a customer, but he knew I was looking for money. And then, that kind of, a little bell went off and thought do I have a reputation like that? [Laughter] O.k. So, then we came onto, after Reamer's Store, was the, the Whiteford Post Office. It was in that little white building.
DW Oh yeah.
SR There's a house in between, and there on the corner was the Whiteford Post Office.
DW O.k.
SR Now I don't know how many years it was there. Someone seemed to think it was in Bull's store at one time, but I don't recall that. All I know is, because Charlie's aunt was the Post Mistress—Alice Davis. And then you went on to the, across the corner where, not where the bank is setting, but on the corner was Bull's Store. You've heard them talk about Bull's Store, haven't you?
DW Yes. Uh huh.
SR O.k. They had a fountain there. And I can remember Bull's Store well.
DW Mmm.
SR And then of course after that then Tom Sueter built the pharmacy…
DW Pharmacy.
SR across, across the road.
DW Right.
SR We miss that little place, cause I am almost sure, I'm trying to remember, it seems they had a fountain, a soda fountain in there, too. I'm not sure. And then going on through Whiteford…I don't remember, I know the telephone, there's a little building there where the…
DW Yep.
SR telephone had…
DW Still is.
SR Is it still the same thing?
DW Still there. Mmm hmm.
SR O.k. And then of course you came to your Church on the left. And then you went on down, and I'll never forget as long as I live, Staso Milling.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I was at the fire the night it burned. And it was during the war. Charlie was in the service and Charlie's dad picked me up and we went to the fire. And that burned the Staso Milling down. And of course they never opened up after that.
DW Right.
SR But that was in…(Can you cut that off a minute, I have…)
DW Sure. Let's take a break. Hang on just a second.
DW: O.K. We're back after our break.
SR Oh, I remember, I remember the Ma & Pa, you know the railroad going through, of course passed through Delta and Cardiff and Whiteford, and on down the valley. You can still see where it traveled out here and into Pylesville. And at Pylesville they had a creamery station. One of the oldest creameries. And Robinson Brothers used to go down every morning and they had a little section of it where they, they'd take orders from the farmers or they could sell feed or whatever. They use to go down every day. The first ride I had on the Ma & Pa Railroad was from Cardiff to Pylesville to pick up a car. [Laughter] But then in Pylesville there was a store and before Lanius, I don't know who was there before Lanius, but I know that Walter Pruitt was there when it closed up. And then, let's see what else was in. They had, of course I mentioned the creamery. That was quite a station where they… It was a huge, brick milk station. It is a… I have a friend who's writing another book and he's getting all this information on, on milking, you know, where they took the milk cans. That's where they took the milk in. Well, I tell ya… You've heard this story in The Morning Milking—the book that Linda Morris wrote and Dave DeRan.
DW Oh, yeah.
SR Well, this horse that they had, "Old Dan", went… They drove him to the Pylesville milk station. And Kenny, of course, lived over here. Kenny's father was Walter Morris. And Eleanor called me one day and she said, "Sarah, did your"…She says, "You know "Old Dan"… He was in the book. It told the story of him going down… Well first let me back up. Kenny went in to get his breakfast one morning and he left "Old Dan" with the cart, milk, what do you call them? Milk wagon.
DW Milk wagon.
SR Setting out at the end of the walk. Well, when he went in and slammed the door, "Old Dan" took off and just moseyed on down to the Pylesville Station and…
DW [Laughs]
SR he got down and there was a line of people waiting to go, get rid of the milk. He just walked right up with them, just as if he was in line.
DW [Laughs]
SR Well, Eleanor called me and she said, " Sarah, Kenny's father bought that horse from your dad. Did your dad train him?" He was really a trained horse. And I said, "No, but I know where the horse came from." He belonged to my Uncle Will who was a crippled man. Uncle Will, as a young boy, fell from the top of the barn and broke his back, and could never walk after that. And he trained this horse to kneel, and I've seen him do it. I was just a little kid. And he'd climb up on his neck and get on his back. He had him trained that if he whistled… There was a balcony on their home, and he'd walk out of the balcony, on the balcony, or walk out. He crawled out, and would drop down on the horse's back.
DW [Laughs]
SR And this was "Old Dan".
DW Oh, wow.
SR And that was, he had some age on him. But I remember him so well. And Uncle Will had two horses in his time, and this was one of them.
DW [Laughs]
SR So "Old Dan" knew how to go. He had gone so many times and Kenny said, one time he said well when he slammed the door… Of course that was an indication you know that Kenny was coming out of the house after his breakfast, so he figured he was… [Laughter] he was coming, and he took off. I always thought that was the neatest story…
DW Right.
SR to tell about, to tell about a horse. Anyway, the Pylesville Station was there until the train stopped coming.
DW Now there was a sawmill there too, wasn't there?
SR Yes, afterwards.
DW Uh, o.k.
SR After, after they… Yes there was a sawmill there, but I don't remember who ran it.
DW Wasn't it Day? I think it was Days.
SR Was that who it was?
DW I think so.
SR I don't remember who ran it. But that was after the milking station was there.
DW Now the old…
SR Creamery they called it.
DW Right. The old stone trestle, I mean the track was still there at this time.
SR Oh yeah. That trestle hasn't been gone that long. I remember… I don't remember when they took it away. I know one time I called the State Department or County Department, or whoever had charge of the road. See, we went down through Old Pylesville Road and around the corner. And then when you went around under the trestle, there was a bank and there were no guardrails.
DW Right.
SR So I called and I said, "Did you ever stop to think that a bus could go over there, could go right over that railing?" By golly, they weren't long putting guardrails up. And it was dangerous.
DW There was an old house right next to the trestle there.
SR Yeah, that's where Annie Watkins lives.
DW Yes. Is that…
SR Steve Cox, Steve Cox is her son-in-law.
DW Any history of the house that you know of?
SR No, I have no idea about the house. Even the one up on the bank is an old house. Now this whole area was settled by Pyles, and that could be… I have never gotten the history of that house. Now this, the old mansion over here was a Pyle, Nathan Pyle. And that goes back a long time. Over here at the, where Mayberry's lived on Todd Place. Right across the road.
DW O.k.
SR Over, you know where it is, you can see it from here. That's been sold two or three times. Lewis Mayberry lived there and farmed it for Ross Todd, until he sold it.
DW Are you on Jenkins Road?
SR Yeah, Jenkins Road.
DW O.k. O.k.
SR Yeah. See there were Pyle's, and Jenkins, and Nace, or Jenkins married into the Pyle family. I don't know how it was…I'd have to get my history and review my history to get it straight. [Laughs]
DW Now that's Broad Creek that comes down through Pylesville there.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW And uh…
SR And you have all these little streams converging.
DW Right.
SR Right down here at the bottom of the hill. Heck, I was, stayed at home. It washed out on either side of me. There's a creek that comes down this way on this side, bottom of the hill, and then one comes down through Whitefords' and down through…Where's it come out? Well under the bridge here, right down at the bottom of the hill. And that flows into Broad Creek too. And no wonder it flooded, because you have them also coming from over from the Fawn Grove area.
DW Right.
SR In Broad Creek itself.
DW Yep.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW Yeah.
SR I didn't know until recently that Deer Creek, which comes from the northern corner of Harford County starts in… Jean Orsburn's daughter, now Jean Webb Orsburn, the funeral home people. Her daughter lives in Shrewsbury, and it starts in her back yard.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR [Laughs] The beginning of it. I always thought that was an interesting note, too.
DW Yep.
SR Everything has a beginning. And everything has an end.
DW Yeah, I think it comes down through the corner of Baltimore County, actually.
SR Yes. Well yeah, Norrisville.
DW Right.
SR Mmm hmm. See Norrisville is right on that.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Comes across there. It's very interesting. So other than anything else down in Pylesville… Of course you know when they put the road in, they took out a farm. That was the Hicks-Greer farm. [Coughs] It's no longer there. The road goes through about where it was. And then of course Halsey's had a swimming pool when we were kids.
DW Oh.
SR I use to love to come here. It wasn't much bigger than this living room.
DW [Laughs]
SR But it was a swimming pool. And they were there for all that time. Now the house, that stone house, is where Charlie's great, great-great-grandfather, George A. Davis lived at one time.
DW Ah.
SR That has a lot of history too. That's a very old stone house.
DW That's the one right behind Halsey's Store.
SR Yeah, Mmm hmm. Yeah.
DW O.k.
SR: Yeah, they lived there at one time. And someone was telling me the other day was in here, said they knew of several people that had lived around, but it does have a very old… I suppose it's one of the older ones in the whole, in the area. There are a lot of old stone houses around. I have Chris, oh, that did the…Weeks. I have his book.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That did all the old homes around.
DW Right.
SR And some of them are included. Not as many from up here that should be, I didn't think.
DW [Laughs]
SR There should be some more, because when I think of the old Welsh homes down in Cardiff.
DW Right.
SR And then of course he has the Jenkins Place in it. It's a little more showy. But, and he has the Macatee Place. The one out on the corner that Wilson Tharp was working on.
DW Yes. Intersection of St. Mary's Road and Graceton Road.
SR Graceton Road, yeah. That's where it is.
DW Right.
SR But there are a lot of old homes up here. There's a lot, a lot of history, you just take the time… Now I have the Pyle history and the Pyles go back to the Copes. Cope's Corn? Well there, now this is a… That's Nathan, that's a Harry. His wife was a Pyle. Nathan Harry, and that's where the Pyle comes in.
DW [Laughs]
SR But I think the most interesting thing that I found… Michael Whiteford was one of the first in this area. He owned, he owned property all around. Kenny Morris's place, where Marceline Wharton lives, and back here where Kenny, well where Scott Poteet lives now. And was called Fox's Den.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Well, I'm a descendent from Michael Whiteford.
DW O.k.
SR And I, it always made me feel real good to think that I was sitting on my, must be my great, great, great, great grandfather's [laughter] original property called Fox's Den.
DW Yes.
SR But they did, he owned an awful lot of the land. And then of course they had, he had sons and daughters. His, Michael Whiteford's son Edmund Hugh had a daughter Jane and she married Robert Ramsay. And Robert Ramsay was the one who had Ramsay's Tavern.
DW Ramsay's… On Line Road.
SR Uh huh.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So I, there were two brothers, John and Robert. And John is an ancestor of Bill Hess and let's see, some other, in other words these two brothers… I'm not a descendent from him, I'm a descendent from Robert. And someone asked me one time, and I said I'm sure it was Robert, if he had the tavern. [Laughter] So Flora Wiley and I tried our best to do a, to try to find the taverns that were along the Mason Dixon line.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR There were an awful lot of them. That's an interesting… if you can find them.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR But this one is the only one that I know of in existence, and it still has an original closet in it that Nathaniel Ramsay was a poet, and he has inscribed on it. Pat Yale has invited me up to see that and I, she says we never took it off. But that… It was very popular, Ramsay's Tavern.
DW And there was a road too. Ramsay's Tavern Road.
SR Yeah.
DW It's disappeared now.
SR Yeah, right. Mmm hmm.
DW Yep.
SR That's the one that went through from 136 by Donald Merryman, went through the corner of Donald Merryman, and comes out over at Yale's, over in that area.
DW Came right up on Dooley Road.
SR Mmm hmm. Yeah.
DW Yep.
SR It's a, there's just an awful lot of … I get from one thing to the other and I get…and I just can't…I have to concentrate on one thing to get it done right. It's just like genealogy. If someone asks me to tell them something about it, I say look, let me get my mind in the groove. [Laughter] That's what I would want to do.
DW Well, we've been going down Pylesville Road there, so let's, let's go on and a … North Harford. So you had mentioned earlier that you were active in the PTA. I also know that your children were in the band.
SR Yeah. [Laughs] Right.
DW So?
SR Well I became active, actually before the boys… The school was dedicated when? 1952. Because the boys were born in July of 52. And I was active, worked on a committee. Marceline Wharton, of course, got me involved and that was the, that was the first time that I began to work at school. Well then… See Carol and Betsy were still at…
DW Slate Ridge.
SR Slate Ridge. And then when they built, you know they went into high school, they went out there. Well you were in high school, not when they were there, though. Not Carol and Betsy. You're not as old as they are.
DW Yes.
SR Carol's sixty-one. Are you?
DW Well, Betsy was a year ahead of me.
SR Oh, was she a year ahead of you in school?
DW Sixty, Sixty-five. So she should have been '64.
SR She graduated in '64. Carol graduated in '60. Well I just became, I, you know, I liked to know what my kids were doing, and I liked to be involved. So, I became involved in the Band Parents as president twice. The guy that use to be the president resigned and I would, and at that time the president one year and then you became the vice-president the next year. Well then I had to take it the second year. [Laughter] And of course Mike Pastelak and I use to have a few words once in a while, but a lot of people did, so it didn't worry me. [Laughter] I liked Mike, he, I called him and congratulated him when he became a Harford County Outstanding Educator. Then we, I was involved with the band parents, and then of course Carol was in the chorus. And Betsy, of course, was involved in the band. And then the boys didn't go until six years later. See they graduated in '70. They were six years after her. And I could just never get away from PTA. But I have to tell you this. When I found out I was going to have twins, I said I didn't care about the twins. It was that dang PTA that I was worried about. [Laughter] Twenty- some years that I was involved in it.
DW Yeah. Yeah.
SR But I've always felt, I've always liked the teachers. I thought we had good teachers. And I think North Harford deserves a lot more credit than what it gets. So you graduated in '65 then?
DW Yep. Mmm hmm.
SR Mmm hmm. Well its… I've been through a lot around school and I still, I'm still interested. My grandchildren. Matt graduated in 2000. Shelly just graduated this past year. She's at Western Maryland. I say Western Maryland, McDaniel. [Laughs]
DW Yeah.
SR And Meredith, my oldest grand daughter, is a graduate of Elizabethtown. And she's teaching at Kennard-Dale, Special Education. And my oldest grand daughter is adopted and she's a Graphic's Arts major and a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, which is… She did very well out there. So. I'm very proud of my grandchildren. I have one more to get through.
DW [Laughs] Well, lets keep going south.
SR O.k.
DW Madonna? AARP?
SR Yeah. Well yeah. Well, how did I get involved with AARP? One reason, I guess, someone talked me into joining. But I joined the group. They travel and they go on… Marlene Kegley, she was Marlene Gross Kegley, is the tour guide. She works for the Hunt Valley Bus Company, and takes us on some of the most wonderful trips and everything is planned for the senior citizens.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR If it's raining, we're taken into the portico. [Laughter] If somebody has a problem walking, you get help. But the day trips are wonderful. And I guess that's one reason why I got involved. Well of course I got into it, and I can't keep my big mouth shut wherever I go.
DW [Laughs]
SR They were having trouble getting programs. Well, I started suggesting this program and that program, and because they really had some dillies. You know, if somebody just comes and wants to talk about dentistry, or, oh what was another one? Your wills. And who in the heck wants at this age to worry about a will? [Laughter] Investments, and who wants to worry about that?
DW Yeah.
SR So we began to get some interesting, interesting programs down. And then the next thing I knew, I ended up as vice-president. And then of course, I didn't realize it, but they expected me to take the presidency.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, well I don't know whether I should do that. Not at this age. But what do you know. I got one more year to go. [Laughter] And I keep thinking, maybe that's what keeps me moving.
DW Sure.
SR Because I tried to loosen them up a little bit. Henry Heaps and Mary Harry just joined. The wait, it's a three-year wait to get in. If you want to join, you better get your name in. It will take you three years to get in, because we have such a waiting list. They can only take… The reason why they can only take so many is because of our meeting area. We have 185 members, but we have an average of 100 to 125 at every meeting. You must attend four meetings a year to go on these trips. And they all sign up. If there's a trip coming up, you better get there early cause you'll be waiting for an hour to sign up for it.
DW [Laughs]
SR But it's, it's been good, and as I said, we try to loosen them up a little bit. I told someone we had a meeting this week and I never know what I'm going to say. But I said, I looked out over the crowd and there is no one smiling. So we sang a song, we sing a couple of songs. And I said, "For Pete's sake look at each other and smile!" [Laughter] They don't know how serious they get. So then we had, what else did we do? Our program, oh our program was on the bird rescue. And that was interesting. I didn't realize that there's one at Jarrettsville. It's a rehabilitation and something else bird rescue. This gal and her mother seem to be involved in it. They take in all kinds of birds that are hurt. Broken legs, or not sick. I don't know if they take sick birds, but could have a beak that's mangled, you know various things. And they rehabilitate them.
DW Wow.
SR And she says she has pigeons galore. People bring them. You know, they find something that's injured. So that's a, that's a kind of a meeting, a program that we like to have. And something that's, you know, amusing to them. Now I've had Don come down and talk about the slate. Pete Whiteford brought his bottles, and somebody said who in the heck wants to look at old bottles. Well, it was one of the best meetings we had.
DW [Laughs]
SR Then we had an antique show. Like a road show thing.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And Fay Gresham came down and someone brought in an old antique and she couldn't, or she didn't put a price on them. She just said, well now this is an antique, or this is collectable, or this isn't worth much. Not like the one that we had at Slateville where you took one, and he evaluated it. You know, appraised the things.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR But this was just to tell them. But just little things like this that we do and we have the County. We had… Oh, one of the best ones we had was two sheriffs came to talk to us about safety. Believe you me we all came home and made sure our doors were locked and… They told us different things like don't put your checks in the mailbox if you're sending, paying your bills.
DW Right.
SR They could take your checks and alter them.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Golly, all of us now are going to the Post Office and mailing our checks. [Laughter]
DW We do.
SR Yeah. I mean I never dreamed of it; never thought about it. I'm too trusting.
DW Yeah.
SR I trust everyone until they do something to me, and then look out. [Laughter] I don't… And I told someone one time I turn this cheek, this cheek, and this cheek, and this cheek [laughter] one time, and then I've had it. Oh well, that's the way it goes.
DW You were also active, I believe, on the Board of Citizens Care Center.
SR I'm on that Board now.
DW Oh, you're on that Board…
SR I've been on every Board in this county.
DW [Laughs]
SR I'm not kidding you. I've been on every Board in this County. I was on the TB Board. Oh, also… A couple things that have happened in my lifetime I'm very proud of. I was chosen the Outstanding Volunteer in the State of Maryland by the Maryland Library Association in 1992.
DW Oh.
SR Now the council recognized… I have a proclamation for that too that recognized me. That was one; that was a nice honor. But I had worked you know to get the library going. Been on the Board for twelve years, on the library board for twelve years, and worked to get this library out here which is… I say as far as anything in my life, I guess that I have accomplished, that's one of the ones that I really am proud of. But, as I told you before. And then also, I got a community service award. But anyhow, to get to the Boards, I was on TB Board, Cancer Board, Historic Trust.
DW [Laughs]
SR I've been on the Citizen's Care Center Board for six years. And I really enjoy that. It's, I feel like we're doing something good. And let's see, I organized the Peach Bottom Red Cross Unit, which entails… See, we're under the Baltimore Council. Peach Bottom is also. Comes out of York.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So I did, got that going. An organizer of the Old Line Museum. And gee, I can't believe this. I was thinking about the other day. I was on the first Board of the Delta Community Center.
DW Mmm.
SR That was before we had, had no ceiling in it. [Laughter] It was kind of on the rough side. I know it was Pete Ambrose and Eddie Beakes and Marie Burton and myself, comprised the Board. So then now things have changed and they've done a… They really have a nice building.
DW Yeah.
SR They have a real nice building. The only thing that bothers me, too… Another thing that bothers me is, when we talking about the Mason Dixon line, how things are divided. To me it's… Actually all it means… The only reason that line, or where it makes any difference is when you vote and what was the other one? There's another one.
DW Driver's license.
SR Well, yeah.
DW [Laughs]
SR To have a license in Maryland, you have to have a driver's license.
DW Yeah.
SR But as I said, it's a community and it should remain a community.
DW Yes.
SR But the splitting of the fire company did not help. And I won't go into that any further.
DW [Laughs]
SR Some of the remarks that I could make on that. But it's, it just hurts when you have a community where everyone gets along so well and works together. And I go to church in Pennsylvania. Slateville Church. All my ancestors are buried there. As a matter of fact, that guy sitting over there on the wall was one of the first Elders in Slateville Presbyterian Church.
DW Mmm, o.k.
SR And I'm very proud of the fact that I, my roots are in Peach Bottom Township, Delta, Lower Chanceford. I graduated from Lower Chanceford in high school, cause we were across Muddy Creek. But, and here I am living in Harford County and I do just as much in Pennsylvania as I do in Harford County.
DW Sure.
SR [Laughs] And I felt like I've been doing enough in Harford County when I sat down and wrote about it.
DW Yeah. [Laughter]
SR Well, I helped organize the Old Mine Museum and worked for years to get it off the ground. Now my daughter-in-law's there and she's doing a good job, and Don. And they're history-minded. That's the nice thing about two people, if you have the same interest.
DW Oh, yes. Well it's also nice that your interest in history has past onto your children.
SR Well, I, you know… I know that my files are a mess. I'm sure that whoever will go through them will figure I'm certainly not organized. Well, I can organize everybody else in this community or country, but I can't organize myself, my family.
DW [Laughs]
SR But anyway, I have saved a lot of information that can be… Now Don, Don will get into it. David's into history, too, both of them. David's major in college was history. But, and he's interested in, oh my gosh… Terry doesn't know what she's going to do with all this stuff that he collects.
DW [Laughs]
SR And Don was collecting old machinery and then they had a big fire up at New Park and burned, burned up a lot of…. He and Dave Glenn, Dr. Glenn?
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Are old machinery collectors.
DW Oh.
SR They just believe… But where do you put it all? [Laughs]
DW Yeah. Space is limited.
SR I have warned them that if anything happens to me, a lot of these things that I have in here are old family things that I've saved.
DW Right.
SR And I said, please, what ever you do, if you don't want them, put them in storage because maybe the grandchildren will want them, or maybe my great-grandchildren will want them.
DW Right.
SR But I said, don't put them in a sale! [Laughter] Well, then they go. And I keep a history of everything, too. Just, you know, to tell them who it is.
DW Yeah.
SR So, what else do you want to hear?
DW Well, somewhere in these interviews we always try to talk about what kind of changes you've seen in the county. You know, positive or, or particularly positive. Let's do positive first.
SR O.k.
DW O.k.
SR Well, one of the most positive things was when I came here, that we didn't have a Republican Primary. [Laughs]
DW Ah. [Laughs]
SR And while I… And I think when Stanley Blair and, oh gosh, John Hardwick, and the fellow down at Baldwin, I know his name, ran for office, they were the first Republicans who ever ran for anything. But I served… I, not very long after I came, I was one of the first women judges, and served for twenty-five years. Went through, starting at the Slate Ridge School, where they voted. And then went, and of course I've been a good Republican all my life, I my as well admit that.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I admit it, I mean I'm proud of it. Then we went from there to North Harford.
DW Right.
SR And I worked twenty-five years as a judge in Harford County. And I have always been interested in politics. Not to the point that I ever wanted to run for anything, because I'll tell you…. Oh golly, I can't think of his name; I'll think of it. Anyhow, he's a delegate and he called me and said, "Sarah, how would you like to run for the House of Delegates?"
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, "You're kidding!" He said, "No I'm not." He said,"You think it over." So that evening at the dinner table I said, " Charlie"… Wilson Scarff. I said, " Wilson called me today and wanted to know if I'd run for the House of Delegates." And he looked up and he said, "The day you move into politics, I leave home." [Laughter] And boy that fixed that! So I just work on the sidelines and that type of thing.
DW Yeah.
SR Once in a while I have a coffee, or I have had in the past. I haven't been able to, coffee for somebody who was running for an office, but I'm interested.
DW Yeah.
SR And I'm interested in the fact that we do have a two-party system, which really we didn't… A lot of people joined the Democratic, became Democrats because it was the only time they could vote…
DW Yes.
SR in a primary.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Well my first voting was in a Republican Primary.
DW Mmm.
SR Now, not the first time. No, cause I was, that was 19… We didn't have a Republican Primary until Stanley ran, which was later. When I first voted, it was…
DW Like the 60's.
SR It was forty-two. Forty-two.
DW I don't think the Republicans had a primary until the 60's or 70's.
SR No. See it was at least then, the 60's. It was in the 60's, I'm pretty sure.
DW Right.
SR So things have come a long way, that way.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then, the fact that they put a bypass in. They bypassed Delta and Cardiff. It made a big difference, because today trucks couldn't, they couldn't get through.
DW Right.
SR It's, it's amazing. I feel badly about the fact that we have no railroad through anymore. It was kind of a shame that that turned out like it did. And one of the saddest things that happened, the old turntable use to be at the upper end of town, where they'd come down, the train would turn around?
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Well Don and several of them did everything they could to keep this thing from leaving the community. A company out in St. Louis, some company bought it, or got it and took it to St. Louis, and its laying down there in a junk pile.
DW Wow.
SR And the old time thing… I said, well what would you have done with it? Well he didn't know, but…[Laughter] See, they even had a group trying to preserve the railroad like, you know, preserve the area. Now, in Pennsylvania all that land that the railroad was on has reverted to the farm, to the one that owned it.
DW Oh.
SR Now here in Maryland… I don't know what happens here in Maryland, end of it. But in Pennsylvania, that's right. Slateville and Slate Ridge, Chanceford, Harmony Churches; there were five churches, had their beginning at the Log Church of the Barrons which is at the conjunction of Scotts Creek and Muddy Creek. And it's about a good three quarters of a mile off of 851, at Bryansville. Well, back there we have a marker where the old, it was called the Log Church of the Barrens. And there's a big marker there, and the man who owned the property gave them an acre, a square acre. And of course that was deeded to Donegal Presberry but we had no access to it.
DW [Laughs]
SR Now in the deed, and Ross McGuiness was suppose to be working on this, in the deed is suppose to be that we have access to it, but the man that lives there will not let anyone through. And that's where the railroad went down. We use to go down and walk down the railroad, where the railroad was. It would take you right to it. But it's all isolated back there.
DW [Laughs]
SR So that's the kind of thing that happens, you know, when people get…
DW Modern times.
SR Yeah. Yeah. No on wants you… You can't step on anybody's property. Don't do this and don't do that. Well I've always respected property. Of course I grew up on the farm. And I'm not kidding you Doug, and I'm not exaggerating. There isn't anything that I haven't done on the farm except… I never delivered a calf, I never delivered a pig; [laughter] I never did anything like that. My father made sure we weren't around. But when it came to working, I did everything there ever was. I've ridden a horse since I was just a wee tot.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I have a picture here some place where I was sitting on a horse when I was three years old. And he was a horse; wasn't a pony. And we had horses and ponies. We roamed the hills and I, I could write a book. [Laughter] They were talking about raking hay and doing this and that. I said no, we did it the hard way. We bunched it by hand, you know, fork, then we raked it up and then we made our bunches. And I said many a wagonload I've loaded and many a one… I use to drive the, what they call the hayfork to unload the hay.
DW Right.
SR Drove the mule to that. And I even hitched up… I've done all the milking at one time. We had, my dad had hired men, but one day one couldn't be there, so I did the milking.
DW [Laughs]
SR We didn't have that many cows, but a, at least…
DW Right.
SR I've done it. [Laughs] I've done it. So what else were we talking about?
DW Changes—good, bad.
SR Well, we had good times when we were younger. We didn't have, of course we didn't have television. We went out and made our own fun. We had parties. We use to play spin the bottle, hide and seek, and that kind of thing. But we made our own fun. Coasting, skating, uh, what else did we do? We did, we didn't have sleds; we got pieces of board or a cardboard box, or something like that. At church we had things planned. Our Youth… It was kind of a center. I lived across the road from the Delta, uh, Salem Methodist Church. And I went to Sunday school there at nine o'clock and played in their Sunday school band. And my mother picked me up at ten and I'd go to Pine Grove. We were Presbyterians; go to Pine Grove and play in that band. [Laughter] So I was busy all the time. But we had… When I started high school it was our first orchestra that we had in Lower Chanceford. Lower Chanceford was a three-year high school, and then they built one. And when I started too, it was a year after I, before I started they had a four-year high school. And that was when we started our first high school band. So you learned to play an instrument and the first thing you know you all got together. I used to ride my pony to… You know Gerald Hess, not Gerald, but Bill Hess?
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Alright Bill's brother, Gerald and I were in the same class. He was a trumpet player and I was clarinet. And we, for Sunday school, for Salem Sunday school, we practiced at their house. So I'd ride my pony.
DW [Laughs]
SR At night! And coming home it was that black you couldn't see anything, and I just gave him his head; I knew he'd take me home. [Laughter] But now today, I would no more ride a pony out in those hills for anything.
DW Yeah.
SR But we had, oh let's see for other fun, we went to the movies a lot. Oh it was a great thing when you could go to York to the movies. And Delta of course was a big thing. And I remember going to all the westerns. Ken Maynard… [Laughter] Some of the old, let's see, who were some more, Tom Mix, some of the old westerners. And I even remember them when, you know Enid Lewis played the piano at the theatre. John Harkin's mother played at one time, too. They played along with the silent movie type. I remember the only silent movie I every saw was a Leslie Howard, and that's been a long time ago. But after that thing, we got the talkies, and things changed there.
DW [Laughs]
SR But in town, where the changes have come we don't have any restaurants in town. But as I told you, we use to go to Ethel Smoker, Ethel Norris's Restaurant and get... Then there was one across the street from Robinson Brothers called Jones's Restaurant, and there was another place that you could congregate. And then you had Pappy Poff's Ice Cream Parlor, which was on up the street. Now, but see, we were one town.
DW Right. Right.
SR We didn't, you know, it didn't matter whether you lived… And I don't believe that there was a lot of competition between Cardiff boys and Delta boys, you know, that type of thing. You ought to see Dick Heap's halls where they played basketball. Delta High School had all their games there and many a dance on the second floor.
DW [Laughs]
SR There was a guy from Havre de Grace that use to come up and play. Use to come up to Slate Ridge and play. And we went through that. Now this was before the War. We went through a period where square dancing was really fun. And we use to have square dances at the Dick Heap's building, up at the top. And they had some nice round dancing too. And then at Slate Ridge auditorium, we use to have many a square dance in there.
DW Hmm.
SR You… Airville Hall, and then we would go to St. Mary's. Always went to St. Mary's tournament and went to the dances.
DW Right.
SR I mean that was, that was the ultimate to go.
DW [Laughs]
SR It really was. Bel Air… I was never really that well acquainted with Bel Air until after I was married. And of course they had a lot of nice, a couple of nice restaurants that we used to go to. We used to go to the Armory to dances. In fact, I remember one particular before, before the war. They had nice dances, and I don't know who sponsored it. But the guy from the orchestra from Havre de Grace, what was his name? Hasn't been too many years. I think that somebody still goes by the name that they played. It was a dance, you know, nice dancing. It was really nice dancing.
DW [Laughs]
SR It really was. It was like the Susque Centennial that they had. They had the dance up at the VFW. And it was really nice. It had a three-piece orchestra that was absolutely out of this world. They played all the old tunes. Everybody was just having a wonderful time.
DW [Laughs]
SR So I took two Celebrex and danced with the undertaker. [Laughter] I thought, my golly, I'm going to go and have a good time tonight.
DW Yeah.
SR But anyway, let's see, we're back to… What else went on? [Sighs] Bus, you know, they didn't have bus trips like we have now. We traveled some; Charlie and I used to travel. The big thing around here at one time was go to Florida for a couple of weeks.
DW Right.
SR That was, that was the big thing. I remember, I could name three or four, two couples would get together and go to Florida and spend the week or so. Then come back and that was their vacation. We use to… We went to all the World's Fairs. Well, New York. I remember going to '30, what was it? '30, no the one in '33 I think was Chicago. Charlie went to that one. The next one in '37 or '36 was in New York. Went by train.
DW Mmm.
SR Didn't drive. We went to Aberdeen, took the train, took you right into the World's Fair. You enjoyed it, came back, got your train and came back, and that's all there was to it. I loved traveling by train.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I think it's a good way. I like the bus traveling, too, because it'll take you right to the door. But automobile driving anymore is just… I just don't enjoy it at all.
DW Yeah. Too fast.
SR It is. It really… And you never know what the next guy's going to do. I'm a defensive driver. I'm always anticipating that a guy coming toward me.
DW Yeah.
SR And I think that's the safest thing to do. And some day I'll probably forget. [Laughter] You never know.
DW Well…
SR You want to talk about the price of things?
DW [Laughs] Well, that's a change. That's for sure.
SR Oh, golly. Back when I was a girl… Of course you didn't get a chance, an opportunity to go shopping every week like people do today, or they did there for a while. You know, every time you turn around you were shopping. So, I remember the Philadelphia Inquirer and another one. I was talking about this to Mabel Day the other day. Philadelphia Inquirer was one paper and then another one from Philadelphia. The minute they would advertise specials, Lit Brothers and John Wanemaker's and I don't know what all. Well you'd fill out the application, send for it and the next thing you knew, you had something new. [Laughter] But a lot… Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, when you lived on the farm, you ordered it. You look at an old Montgomery Ward or an old Sears and Roebuck catalog today, and it's unbelievable, the changes in the…
DW: O.k., go ahead, we're back.
SR O.k. As I started to say, the hardest thing that I think that I've had to face is the change in prices over the years. Just like I was talking about, a twenty-five cent hamburger and that kind of thing, and you go today and what you have to pay. And it's very hard for me to get to that level of spending. I'm a comparison shopper and a sale buyer, [laughter] you know. Betsy told me the other day I was compulsive.
DW [Laughs]
SR But I said well, if I see something I like, I do, I get it. But at the same time it's very hard to adjust to those prices, because when we were kids, we didn't have a whole lot. You had two pairs of shoes, and you had a winter coat, one winter coat. Today, your closet's full of everything, and I don't like to throw anything away.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because I think maybe someone will come along and can wear it.
DW Right.
SR I give to the Purple Heart and I used to take things to Good Will, and I still do that. But I'm always looking in my closet thinking, now wonder if so and so could wear that. Or if someone would like…I just hate to throw it away. I know I'm never going to get back into it. [Laughter] But it's just, it's that adjustment to the price of things. I had a small thing in my bathroom. It was, well the pipe wouldn't drain, so I called the plumber. He came in and he put a, he says, "Well I'll fix that." He poured something down the drain and that was it.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then he looked at my bathroom and it needed a new flapper. Now guess what that bill was.
DW [Laughs] Well, probably seventy-five dollars just to knock on the door.
SR Ninety-five dollars.
DW Yeah.
SR And I don't know what the service call was, but that hurts.
DW Yeah.
SR That hurts. I know they all have to make a living, I knew that. But, I 'm a, I'm getting by, I'm not complaining, I get by. But I live on my social security plus my investments. And I don't live high. Charlie and I did never live high. We wanted to educate our children, which we did. We educated all four of them. And our feeling was, that's one thing that you can give them that no one can take away from them.
DW Yep.
SR And that's the way I feel about it, and I'm the same way…I mean, it just hurts me so to see what they have to pay to put their children through school. I went to Elizabethtown College. It cost me five hundred dollars that first year. Carol went in 1960 and she was paying, I think it was three thousand when she started, and it ended up being like four or five before she graduated.
DW Right.
SR Meredith went in 2000, she graduated before, ___________________ anyhow, say 2000, year 2000. Twenty-eight thousand dollars.
DW Hmm.
SR Shelly is going to McDaniel, Western Maryland. And Kitty Kerr told me the other day that hers was a hundred and fifty dollars. I said that's twenty-nine thousand dollars for Shelly.
DW [Laughs] Wow.
SR Now you know what Doug, when you have a family to educate, or that you want to educate, somebody has to sacrifice.
DW Yeah.
SR And they say well they can go borrow it, they can do this or go do that. All right, if they borrowed that whole amount, it would take them the rest of their lives to pay it off.
DW Oh yes. Oh yes.
SR And I, now Shelly has a, Shelly has a partial scholarship, which helps, and then the fact that they have Matt down in St. Mary's. By the way, St. Mary's is one of the best-kept secrets in this whole country.
DW [Laughs]
SR It's a good… You know it's an honors college to begin with.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And he started out, it was pretty rough. But, he's managed it, and his mother said the other day he has almost a 4.0. He's a Biology major. But he had to learn to study.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Now Meredith had no problems in school. She just, she just breezes through. But she'll make a good Special Ed teacher. I know that. But I'm real proud of them, I really am. But as I said, the adjustment that you had to make to these things is really one of the hardest things.
DW Mmm hmm. Education and health care are the two worst as far as price.
SR Oh, oh my, what will we do without Medicare and Blue Cross/Blue shield, or whatever.
DW Yeah.
SR I mean I, I cannot believe… Just let me give you a good example. I don't mind who knows this. Charlie had a pace maker, all right? I know putting the pace maker in cost a good bit of money, but our Blue Cross/Blue Shield took care of it. And when he was in the hospital, just six weeks before he died, they decided they'd replace the battery to his pace maker. Guess what the bill was for that replacement.
DW It had to be thousands just…
SR Six thousand dollars.
DW Yeah, right.
SR And I said something to someone there. And they said, "Well, we don't have a code for it."
DW Forty-five cent battery. [Laughs]
SR Yeah. I mean that to me, I, is it me or am I distrustful, or what is it? Because it seems to me that somebody is always trying to rip somebody off. That's why I like our little community. This, to me, is a unique area to live in.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Because you don't know everyone, but you know a good many people. And there a lot of people moving here that don't want to know you either. You see a lot of new homes. Just like our churches, our churches are just… I don't know how St. Mary's is doing. Of course you grew up in a big area.
DW Right.
SR But we have, our churches are just dropping and dropping. The young people are not interested.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And I, we don't know what it is. Now when they die or they want to get married, well they're right back there. Well, of course they are if they're dead, but… [Laughter] But, and they'll baptize their children. They'll bring their children, baptize them, and that's the last time you see them. Or then when their kid wants to join church, that's the last you see them. I don't, I don't mean to be critical of it, but it's a, it's a trend that we older ones really worry about.
DW Yes.
SR And it, it's the up keeping… I see the day when possibly we won't have a Minister. We won't be able to afford it. Because they said they have a minimum salary you have to pay them, and then you have all the other things that go along. And it's, if people don't give to the church, it's not going to exist. We have people that come once a year, and that's the only time they ever put anything in the offering plate.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And you have others that don't show up at all. Don't do anything. And at the same time we're paying a head tax, what we call a head tax on them.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So it's, that disturbs me. I suppose one of the biggest things, one of the, another big thing that disturbs me is the fact that the churches are just not reaching these people. And maybe they don't like organized religion, I don't know. I'm a traditionalist.
DW [Laughs]
SR I like the old, ya know. I, I'm not the old shouting Methodist type. I'm a good old Presbyterian.
DW [Laughs]
SR But, and I know that maybe things are stayed in, I don't know, are organized in your church, or whatever, but I like that. I don't like the a… I've been, I've been to some, I've heard some where they get all upset and they start screaming, yelling, hollering. All that to me is just emotion.
DW [Laughs]
SR You know, you don't have to wear your religion out on your shoulder. You know that. You're a good Catholic.
DW [Laughs]
SR You know that. You know how, how it is. And I have… as I said, my ancestors were all Presbyterians. I have this much German in me.
DW [Laughs]
SR My great-great grandparents came from Germany, Dusseldorf area, (Betsy and Dick just visited over there) and settled in Lower Chanceford Township. And they were Lutherans when they came here, but there was no Lutheran Church in York County at that area, so they became Methodists.
DW [Laughs]
SR And that was the only, the only bit I have. I tell, I go like this; all the rest of me is Scotch-Irish. There's Stewart, Campbell, oh you name it. Stewart, Campbell, McConkey, Patterson, Campbell. I named that. Let's see, Whiteford. Michael Whiteford came from Scotland and Ramsays. All Scotch-Irish.
DW Right.
SR And you know the old story; I don't know if you ever heard this or not. But, the Barrens, this is called the Barren, you know that. And maybe you've heard this story, that William Penn had trouble getting people to come to this country. Well, anyhow, he brought in the settlement, he brought in the Scotch-Irish. The Quakers, who lived to the north, were afraid of the Indians who lived here. Well, not afraid; they were peaceful who wouldn't fight, I had that backwards. They were peaceful and wouldn't fight. The Calverts were afraid of them. So, he brought in the Scotch-Irish who weren't afraid of anyone.
DW [Laughs]
SR And you know, it's the truth. And you don't tell a Scotch-Irishman he has to do anything.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because he's going to say, "Oh yeah"? [Laughs] When I, when I think of my Scotch-Irish ancestry, I can see where that is very true. I go back to Lower Chanceford Revolutionary War ancestors. And through the McConkeys, Rippys and the Stewarts and I started naming them, Campbells, they all fought in the Revolutionary War. In fact, my one ancestor fought in the Battle of Long Island, which was lost. You know, we lost that to the British. I have that history.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR But that's why, that's why I get involved in talking about people. I get started and I never know when to stop.
DW [Laughs]
SR Cause I just, I just like, I just like to talk about it. And Charlie told me one time I was going to find the black sheep. I said that's what I'm looking for.
DW [Laughs]
SR They weren't all perfect. Jim Tarbert told me one time that his ancestor was a pirate.
DW Mmm hmm. [Laughs]
SR I said that, that's exciting to me. That he was… I love to read, and I know some of it's you know, built up, but I think that's wonderful. And they all had their own stills. [Laughter] Matter of fact, well little bit like Dave Craig, Mayor of Havre de Grace, came and talked at our DAR one time, and talked about what they had to drink. Well they made rum because they couldn't drink the water. [Laughter] Course that was a good excuse to drink the rum, too.
DW Oh yeah. [Laughter]
SR But, going back to the old days, it's hard to imagine, to me, it's very hard to imagine how people exist. And then they wonder… you know, I say this is a unique area. You don't talk about anybody because they're all related.
DW Oh yes. [Laughter]
SR And, and I said well how far could they go? I have Charlie's grandparents, grandparents or great, his great grandparent's love letters. She lived in, she lived in this area cause he lived in the Pylesville area somehow. Anyhow, they went back and forth on the train, so some of the letters went back and forth on the train. But how they corresponded with each other. They went to see each other at night…And they, they did their courting at church meetings and home parties. They were always having some kind of a party for someone.
DW [Laughs]
SR And all in this, all in this little area. But that was a big area.
DW Yes.
SR All right, I lived in, I was ten miles from my grandparents. And boy I'll tell you, it was a treat to go visit my grandparents, it was so far away.
DW It was. Mmm hmm.
SR My dad courted my mother in a horse and buggy to start with. So, and he had ten miles to go. [Laughter] And then I remember the first car. See, I drove a car; I've driven a car since I was nine years old, maybe even less than that. But my dad's left leg was off. And he had a Model T Ford truck, and I used to sit where his leg was off. And I would work the pedals, and drive.
DW [Laughs]
SR And of course he'd be right there holding on to me. One time a friend of mine decided we were going for a ride, and it was a Model T Ford. So she said, let's go for a ride and I said, well I don't know whether we can do it; I can't see over the wheel. She says well I can see over the wheel. So I sat on the floor and changed…
DW [Laughs]
SR pushed the pedals. [Laughter] Oh you name it, Doug, I've been around. Oh gosh, just different things. Now I'll keep quiet. [Laughs]
DW Ah, well we certainly have covered a, a large span and the, the memories of Main Street, Delta and Cardiff, Whiteford, or a…
SR You know there's something I didn't mention was VJ day.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That was one of the biggest times in Delta when all the soldiers came back. That picture is in the museum; it's in the book, too…
DW Right.
SR of them marching down Main Street. That I would say was one of the most exciting times in Delta. See, Charlie was in the service and served at Aberdeen, and I got to tell you this real quick. I had a reputation. He was Lieutenant in charge of taking out… Remember what the ducks looked like, those big amphibious ducks?
DW Yes.
SR They float on land and water. Well he was taking a convoy to Gettysburg, and of course he had to come through Cardiff. Well I got up that morning and was going to go to York to shop and I couldn't get the car started. So I went out and stood up the street. I knew about what time he was coming through, and I flagged down the whole convoy.
DW [Laughs]
SR And it was a convoy of ducks from Cardiff, from down, well the middle of Cardiff, all the way back to Slate Ridge School.
DW [Laughs]
SR I never lived that one down. [Laughter] That's just a little war story.
DW Yeah.
SR That was a, it was a tough time. Charlie was stationed at Aberdeen, but we just lived on the edge all the time. Because every time you turned around they were going to ship them out.
DW Right.
SR Well he happened to have a Colonel… He was in the base shop. He happened to have a Colonel who wanted, trained a group of guys he wanted them to stay there. And that's how he got to stay there. Otherwise, he would have been gone. But we absolutely every, every two weeks he'd say, well I hear we're going to be shipped. So that's the way we lived, and it was not fun. It was not fun. But it was, it was, you know there were good days and bad days. But anyhow, VJ Day was one of the biggest, biggest days in Cardiff. We had a big parade.
DW Good.
SR We use to have a Delta, always, we always went to the Delta Cardiff parades. We started out in Whiteford, and everybody lined up, and people came from all, everywhere to watch that parade.
DW Right.
SR And culminated at community hall or wherever they… Where were the grounds then? Way back years ago. I'm trying to think of where they had their, their carnival. I guess it was always up here. Cause that community building was there before the, well right after the war.
DW Yeah.
SR Right after that. I don't know where they had it before that. I don't even know that they ever had one.
DW: I don't know the history of that.
SR I don't, but I have to look into that and kind of…
DW [Laughs]
SR Get, get it unscrambled as to what went on. But it, it, I, I've always been here, I've always worked for the community, I'm a community minded person, I really am. Someone wanted to know what I did. I said I'm a community activist is what… We do this at the college, we come out in the college reviews, you know, they want to know what you do. And I always write down Community Activist.
DW [Laughs]
SR What else, what else could I put down. I, you name it; I've been into it. [Laughs] And I've tried to do it. That's been my whole problem. A Jack-of-all-Trades; Master of None.
DW [Laughs]
SR But its, its…
DW Well.
SR It's been a good life.
DW Well, your activity has certainly helped the community here.
SR Well I hope it's helped the community.
DW You're well like and well respected.
SR Thank you.
DW: So…
SR I enjoy, I enjoy the people. I think I have a few friends around. And we're getting older. And I'm so pleased that my kids are growing up in, in the area. Carol is only twenty miles away.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And she still teaches.
DW Yeah.
SR But they live here and they're active, and doing things. So that to me is, it's kind of a satisfaction to say, well at least they're doing something, giving back. I believe in, you know, give back what you can. And as far as the library, I would say, I might as well say, that to me is one of the biggest accomplishments or, for the community, now. I didn't do this all alone; I had a lot of help. You know that.
DW Sure.
SR You have to get people to help. It's like getting the money, and getting organized. And I know there was a little bit of dissention about the charging of the membership. A lady called me and she said, " I thought libraries were free." And I said, "Who do you think pays for the books?"
DW [Laughs]
SR And they've calmed down. They realize they have a good thing going.
DW Yeah.
SR And it's, it's, Stewartstown is finally getting on the ball. They're building a library. Pennsylvania Library system is nothing like it is in Maryland. This Maryland. Harford County is recognized nation wide.
DW Oh.
SR Yep. Oh, and when Irene Padilla used to go to the national meetings, there was always something about Harford County coming. So that makes you feel good that Harford County has such a good system. And you, and we must give Dorothy Glackin a lot of credit. Got things going in an organized way you know, where we started out. Like everything you do, you start out small like the Cardiff Homemakers collecting books and exchanging.
DW Right.
SR These book clubs today, did the same thing.
DW Yeah.
SR Reading is… I don't know what, if anything happens to my eyes, I don't know what I would do. I guess I would go to the talking books. [Laughter] That's all that's left to do anyhow. Then you lose your hearing and you're…
DW Whoa. [Laughter]
SR ________You never know. Well, it's, I've enjoyed, I've enjoyed talking to you, though.
DW I enjoyed this very much, and the Oral History will be available in the library.
SR Well, I hope it isn't too jumbled. [Laughs]
DW Which is rather fitting. So… But I am going to say thank you very much. I appreciate your time. The citizens of Harford County appreciate your time.
SR Thank you. Thank you. I've enjoyed it.
SARA ROBINSON
Harford Living Treasure
Hello, this is Doug Washburn, for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 29 October 2003, and I'm with one of Harford's Living Treasures, Sara Robinson of Whiteford. Born just above the Mason Dixon line, Mrs. Robinson has lived in Harford County for more than sixty years. Mrs. Robinson's nomination was made by, June Atkin. Mrs. Robinson, thank you for taking time with me today and for sharing your memories for our county citizens to enjoy. Welcome.
SR Thank you.
DW [Laughs] So, I know you were born in Pennsylvania, but, where and when?
SR I was born just over the line, just north of Delta, about a mile, on April 8, 1921. I'm the oldest, eldest of a family of five children. My father and mother were… No one knew him, his right name, they called him Babe. Babe and Nell Wiley. And he was a handicapped man. He had… He is a man to be admired in many, many ways. He raised a family of five children. He owned three farms, and he was a, he was a go-getter. With all his, his leg was off at his hip, he could do anything, but run. And, if you got in trouble, and he said, "come here", you better go, because it was going to be worse if he caught up with you. [Laughter]
DW Now you said a mile north of Delta.
SR Uh huh.
DW Is that still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes.
DW That all is, still Peach Bottom Township?
SR Yes, well really over the hill. Takes it's a mile to get there, but it's just over the hill where I was born. My mother taught school at Mount Holly.
DW Oh.
SR And I don't know whether that's when she met my dad, or not. But a, she met him and she has two pupils who are still living, Dorothy Kilgore, and Betty Griffith. And not long ago they told me that they were in first grade…Am I talking o.k?
DW Oh yes, fine.
SR They were in first grade and at Christmas time they had a, they use to have little entertainments, Christmas entertainments?
DW Uh huh.
SR And they all gathered at the school, of course, for a Christmas entertainment. And my mother never showed up. The next day they found out that my father had been in an accident and had his leg taken off and she had gone to Philadelphia. Well in those days, there were no telephones, you had no lighting, you had no way of communicating.
DW Right.
SR And they didn't find out until the next day.
DW [Laughs] So did your, did your family, your mom and dad; did they always live on the Pennsylvania side?
SR Oh, yes.
DW O.k.
SR My dad was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k.
SR His, my father was Babe Wiley.
DW Um hum.
SR And all his family settled in Peach Bottom Township. In fact they call it Wiley Hollow, down near Valley School.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That's where, that's where he was born and reared.
DW So that wouldn't be too far from Mount Nebo Church.
SR No, no.
DW Just across the road.
SR But then he moved. Now, then they moved to the top of the Forge Hill which was in Lower Chanceford Township.
DW Ah.
SR Just over. But, I was born in Peach Bottom Township.
DW O.k. But you went to school in Lower Chanceford.
SR In Lower Chanceford.
DW: O.k. Cause I've seen you had a lot of the…
SR Oh, yes.
DW community hall activities where you have the photos of Lower Chanceford.
SR Uh huh. Well, I just got my certificates out. I never missed a day of school in my life.
DW Oh, wow! [Laughs]
SR In fact I have two, I had two brothers and two sisters. None of us ever missed a day until my youngest brother was to graduate, and one month before he graduated, he got the measles.
DW [Laughs]
SR We had a record up until then. My mother figured how many thousands of lunches she had packed.
DW [Laughs]
SR Cause we went to a one-room school. We went, they took, I went by horse. I went by… We had an old sleigh. I remember my dad taking us to school in a Bobsled, over the fences when the snow was deep. Then we graduated to a, the first one, we called it the dogcart. It was a, like a small truck with wire on the sides and leather came down. Then, the next one I remember we called it the bread wagon. It looked like a bread wagon. [Laughter] And it was very dangerous. It had a bench in the middle where the kids sat on the, the boys sat on the bench and the girls on the side. And then they went from that to an old hearse. I mean it was, see we didn't have buses then.
DW Mm hmm.
SR You just whatever, and people, local people took the children to school. So, it was interesting. [Laughs]
DW So, what brought you to Harford County side?
SR Well, of course when I got married. I met Charlie and we were married in May, May 3, 1941. And I moved to Cardiff. At the time I was working in Harrisburg for the medical and dental boards where we licensed doctors and dentists. And at that time the refugee doctors were coming to this country. They had no credentials. They had a terrible time. They'd come to our office and we'd help them get their credentials and get things lined up for them. It was a very interesting, very interesting work, place to work, too.
DW Hmm.
SR Anyhow, we were married May 3, 1941, at Slate Ridge Church. And we did that because he was going to be drafted, and we decided to get married before he was drafted. And of course we could get a three-day license in Maryland, where Pennsylvania took you two weeks.
DW Ah.
SR So that was one of those quickies. [Laughter]
DW So now when you say Slate Ridge Church, this would be the one that's on Main Street.
SR In Cardiff.
DW In, right next to the Mason Dixon Line.
SR Right. That's right.
DW O.k., so…
SR Slate Ridge Presbyterian Church.
DW Mmm hmm. Right. So um, when you got married, you quit working in Harrisburg?
SR I quit working in Harrisburg after I gave them a couple months notice. I couldn't quit right way.
DW Right.
SR Because I hated to walk out. But, I came back to, we came to Cardiff and we started housekeeping in a little apartment in Cardiff. And Straley Greer was our bookkeeper at Robinson Brothers. He was leaving and they asked me to take his place, so I went to work at Robinson Brothers when I came home.
DW Ah.
SR And that was the, really the last… Well I worked until our oldest daughter was born. Carole was born August 1942.
DW So, your husband already had an established business when you got married?
SR Oh yes. Oh yes.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR Robinson Brothers. Robinson Brothers began with his father in 1916, and then he had his brother, Uncle Arthur, we call him. He came in with him a couple of years and Robinson Brothers had been there since that time, 1916, bought the old Gailey building. And Charlie went to, graduated from Slate Ridge School, and went to the University of Maryland. And, there's a story to that. On his 21st birthday, he was a senior, on his 21st birthday he came home and said to his dad, "I'm not going back to school." His father wanted him to be a doctor and he was in a pre-med course. And Charlie did not want to be a doctor. So he came home and started with Robinson Brothers. He was there ever since. [Laughter]
DW Now that would be the building that burned not too long ago.
SR Yes. Mmm hmm.
DW Last year or so.
SR Yes, last Christmas. Last Christmas.
DW O.k., that was…
SR That was an old, old building, and a, and a firetrap too. There was no doubt about that. But, that's where they had their business. And then they had, down at the railroad station, the Cardiff Station, is where the feed mill was.
DW O.k.
SR And…
DW So we're…
SR Pa Adams…
DW So we're right at the intersection of Dooley Road and Main Street.
SR Mmm hmm.
DW And the Robinson Brother building would have been just on the north side.
SR That's right.
DW And the train station would have been just on the south side.
SR Yes, going down, what's that road? Dooley Road.
DW Dooley Road. O.k.
SR Dooley Road, just right at the railroad tracks. Because they had a siding where they brought in molasses and feed and of course they dropped the mail off. When the train was operating, that's where the mail was dropped off. And Charlie, as a boy, at one time carried the mail from that station up to the post office. And I think one of the last ones when they quit, was Grover Snodgrass. In fact, I know he was. He use to pick up the mail and take it up to the post office. That's where they dropped it off.
DW So, the business, was feed?
SR We had, well they were International Harvester dealers.
DW O.k., so…
SR That was at the main building. Not only that, they handled New Holland, Ontario Drills, oh golly, you name it, I think they handled it. Everything, but John Deere.
DW [Laughs]
SR We were International dealers. And then the feed business was down in the old, well we always called it the Old Cardiff Station. And they manufactured, and they had a Robinson Brothers Feed that they put up. It supplied the farmers. And Mr. Jamison Adams was our millman; lived in Cardiff. And he's Jerry Baxter's grandfather.
DW [Laughs]
SR And he was, he was our millman. He had one arm, and did a, lifted bags. I've seen him pick up a bag with his arm and that hook and it was the heaviest, I mean it was something else. He had a hook on his arm.
DW [Laughs]
SR But he was a wonderful person.
DW Hmm.
SR A really nice person.
DW So um, how long was it Robinson Brothers? I mean for…
SR Well, it was Robinson Brothers when Charles's father died in, (what year was that), 1947. And Charlie of course then went into business as a partner. And his Uncle Arthur was the other partner. And then they continued to operate until 1979. Well, Uncle Arthur died, and then Joe came into business as a partner, his son Joe. And then 1979, after the boys had graduated from college, they decided to combine with Manifolds of New Park. So, they sold everything. Now Charlie and Joe were getting to the point, you know near retirement, and the boys were going to take over. Well, they decided to try it for ten years. And they tried it for ten years, and at that time, you don't remember I'm sure, but I do. International Harvester went on strike, everything, the economy kind of bottom went out of it. So the boys stayed at M&R for ten years, and they went out. They were both college graduates, and they decided to use their education. So they gave up and went out and let somebody else have the worries.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it was, it was a real worry then.
DW Hmm.
SR Well, you were getting into the time when dealers were going, combining, getting big, big, big. They would have gotten big, but who wants the headaches?
DW Right.
SR That's what it was, it really was. We use to thank the Lord every time we went by that place that they had gotten out of it.
DW Hmm.
SR It was rough.
DW Well what did the, what did the building become later, in the later years, closer to the time when it burned?
SR Robinson Brothers building?
DW Yeah. What it…
SR Oh my gosh it had most everything in there. Somebody had an office there, and what else did they do? [pause] Other than…Sam Jones, Sam Jones used it for storage. Sam Jones owned it, bought it, and I don't remember that it became anything except a little office here and there. And then when, I don't even know who bought it in the end, who had it. I really don't cause it… We never used… we used the first floor. The second floor was loaded with antiques, things I own. You know, this came out of…[Laughter] from, from the mill.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Ah, and people stored things, you know, they had extra furniture and that type thing. But other than that, they had a, they had a, it was a, it was a good supply for the farmers and a lot of big… they supplied the whole northern area of Harford County and York County, southern York County.
DW So the, the place where you set up housekeeping, is that still there?
SR Where I, where Charlie and I went?
DW Yes.
SR Yeah. Where we, we went to, we moved into a little apartment over Proctor's Store which was on the corner where Bill Proctor and, Earl and Zilla Proctor lived there. The store was on this one side and the, Earl and Zilla lived in the other side, and they turned the second floor into an apartment. That's where we started housekeeping.
DW Mmm hmm. Now that would have been?
SR 1941.
DW And that was the building that um, Sebrings Hardware's was in there later years?
SR: No, no. No, no.
DW Wrong building.
SR It's up on the corner near Dave Glenn's dental office.
DW Oh, o.k.
SR That was Proctor's store on that corner. Where, where the one next to us where Sebring's were. That was the Sidwell Hardware Store.
DW Oh, o.k. Well, I…
SR Sidwell's had been there for years, were there for years and years.
DW O.k. Well, that's what I got confused about because…
SR Now, now…
DW I know Harvey Proctor Sidwell. [Laughs]
SR Yeah right, right, right.
DW O.k.
SR Yeah. Anyhow, we lived, we were in Cardiff. We never, I never left Pennsylvania. I voted in Maryland my first time. I was twenty-one years old.
DW Mmm.
SR Of course we could vote, couldn't vote until we were twenty-one.
DW So, um after the apartment, next…
SR Well then, we had, we decided we'd move up the street. Al Peale was manager at Green Marble. And he lived in a double house that belonged to Frank Day's mother, and we moved, when they moved out. Al left the company. I don't know what changes were made, whether he retired or what. But anyhow, he left, so we rented where they lived. And moved, Frank Day's mother owned it. She lived next door. So we went to housekeeping there and again we moved, that was another move that we made. And then in 1940…
DW Now, is that double still there?
SR Yes. That house is still there.
DW Um hmm.
SR I don't know, I don't know who lives there anymore.
DW O.k.
SR In 1947, Charlie's father passed away. His mother had died in 1946; they were young. She was only fifty-two, and his father was only fifty-seven. And, of course, Charlie was an only child, so we moved into their house, and we lived there thirty, thirty-some years, that we lived in Cardiff altogether, which was about thirty-three years. So that is where we lived.
DW Now, I, I, in the write-up that Mrs. Atkin did, there was a reference to a tunnel from the Green Marble running under your house. Any…
SR Tunnel?
DW Yeah.
SR I don't remember that.
DW No tunnels. O.k.
SR It might have, Charlie may have know about that. I don't remember any tunnel. No, I don't even recall that.
DW O.k.
SR I don't know where she got that information.
DW O.k. [Laughter] Anything about, anything about the Green Marble Company that you remember?
SR Well, of course the Green Marble Company was there for the whole time that we lived there. Golly, many a nights you would hear the water running and the grinding. See they polished the stone at night. Those machines ran all night long. Well, probably ran twenty-four hours a day.
DW Right.
SR But, I think the biggest memory I have of that is warning our kids never to go near the Green Stone Quarry. Cause for years there was nothing around it.
DW Yeah, it's all fenced now.
SR Now it's fenced.
DW To keep you out.
SR Oh my, I looked over the board fence one time, looked down, and whoever was in the bottom looked like a little, little tiny dot almost.
DW [Laughs]
SR Well, three hundred and some feet down.
DW Right. Now that, I was doing some research on the area one time and actually I think it was your son, Donny…
SR Donny
DW that told me that right where the Green Marble Company is, was called Mine Hill in the old days.
SR Mine, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR Yeah, it could have been.
DW Yeah.
SR And when you were talking about the, talking to Don, Gary and Mervin took the water out, drew the water out of the old quarry. And they went down. Gary took Don down in that bucket. I didn't know this until afterwards. Thank goodness I didn't.
DW [Laughs]
SR And Don said, now the tunnel went back under what we called south, not south, Gobbler's Knob, the tunnel from the marble. He said it was like a huge green marble cathedral.
DW Oh.
SR Back in there. And it went, there's a big vein of it, I'm sure. But you know, you know exactly the reason why they can't get it out anymore. It's, number one the water filled up the hole, and number two the old marble polishers…Melvin Cantler was the last one who worked for Green Marble, and that could do that kind of work. Now there, there, I think there are marble people around over the country. But this was Green Marble's problem. No one wanted to work in it, and, and there was no sale. I mean, the green marble is used all over the United States, you know that.
DW Right.
SR Smithsonian, and Don just, there was an article in this past Sunday paper about it being in Constitution Hall, a piece of the marble. It's in the last Sunday's Sun Paper.
DW Right.
SR So, I cut it out and gave it to him, or I'd show it to you.
DW Right.
SR And it was used, well you can go into a lot of buildings and find it.
DW Empire State Building, I think has some…
SR Yes, it has it. And, let's see, and the Congressional Library, I think it has some.
DW Yeah.
SR Just various places and you go around, around here you'll find banks that have counters. Well look out at Forest Hill. They have green marble there. A gentleman called me and wanted to know what marble was worth.
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said, "I can't tell you what marble is worth." If you go to a sale and you buy a piece of marble and you get it for five hundred dollars, that's what it's worth. [Laughter] You can't put a price on it.
DW Right.
SR It's like our slate clock in Delta. You can't put a price on that clock.
DW Right.
SR And it's amazing how, you know what determines the price of something.
DW Sure. How much money you got that day.
SR Yeah, right. I have, see I have that marble top. I have one downstairs, a round one. I wouldn't take a thousand dollars.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR See, that to me, that's what there're worth. [Laughs]
DW Now just for our listeners now, Gobbler's Knob is the little hill there where Tom Super Thrift was, Whiteford Enterprise, that..
SR Well, yeah.
DW that section.
SR All those houses along that side going down, coming in toward the Green Marble.
DW Right.
SR That was called Gobbler's Knob.
DW Right. There's actually an alley back there called Green Stone…
SR Yeah, Mmm hmm.
DW Lane or something.
SR And then of course the lane goes by, goes through, and then goes by one of the oldest houses in the area where Marshall Heaps, Heaps Oil Company is. That's one of the oldest houses and then the next one up is where Mr. Joe Johnson lived. It's another old house back in there.
DW Hmm.
SR And they lived there for years. They were original Welsh constructed.
DW Yeah. Now that's the, the building where Heaps Oil is.
SR Uh huh.
DW That's a double.
SR That's a double.
DW But that's not the double that you lived in.
SR No, no, no.
DW O.k.
SR No, no, no. We lived, our home was on the corner, actually where Green Stone Marble, Green Marble Road comes up, comes out, and then hits Main Street. And we were just next to what use to be old Southern States and then became the Post Office.
DW Hmm.
SR And there was Proctor's store. Proctor, Bill Proctor, well his father and mother had it first. Then he had it, and then we came on down…see Doctor Wilhelm's little building was built after, really after I, we left there. Then I'm going into town now.
DW Right.
SR And there was another store where Mattie Amoss, now Mattie Amoss was Mattie Dooley. And her husband had a store there. And next to them was Gus Lacky who had a barbershop. Now I'm still going down the street, cause we lived on the opposite side of the street. And then, let's see, Myrtle Fox, and then where the apartment building that belonged to Dick Heaps. There were several, oh I can remember Marguerite Wilson had a beauty shop there, and there were various things. It's still there. And then of course the next building is the Masonic Building. That's on Main Street. And Masonic, Masons always met upstairs, but the bottom part had apartments in it, there were two apartments down there. And then you go on down the street a little farther and you came to the Grimms Hotel. It's the only place that I remember that you had, that they had beer in Harford, in Northern, in Cardiff.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR Now that's been a good many years ago.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then of course Dick Heaps' place was next, the Ford agency. And then there was a little store, ___________ Dunlap had, ____________ and Grant Dunlap. It was a little store, just a little building. It's gone now.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR That was between the Heaps building and the Dooley building. And the Dooley building, of course, was built right on the line. As a matter of fact, I guess it would be all right if I say this, the line went through the office. And Mr. Dooley kept his desk in Maryland because the taxes were cheaper in Maryland then they were in Pennsylvania.
DW [Laughs]
SR Now that's the story, they might not like it, but that was the truth that went around. And here, another thing, the line went through our feed building. And our meters and everything were in Maryland. We had Maryland licenses on our trucks because we had a Cardiff, Maryland address.
DW Right.
SR Well, about a year before we closed up, or two years before we closed up a State Trooper stopped one of the truck drivers, and I don't know how it came about, but found out that we were, our trucks were being housed in Pennsylvania but had Maryland licenses.
DW [Laughs]
SR So they had to spend about two thousand dollars to go, change the license. [Laughter] So you see that's what the line…I would just love to take my foot and just wipe it out.
DW [Laughs]
SR Because it's a community, we are a community. And that's the way we should work. I was really disturbed over the fire company breaking off. It was always Delta Cardiff.
DW Right.
SR Always.
DW Right.
SR And we didn't care where the fires were. You went to help no matter what.
DW Right.
SR So, now it's a little bit like a Union, you know, you don't…
DW [Laughs]
SR You can't go from one Union to the other, you do your in trouble, I mean to help somebody. [Laughs]
DW Right. Anything else coming down Main Street? Uh…
SR Yeah.
DW We're coming south?
SR Yeah, we're coming south and we're on, I guess you would call it the north side.
DW O.k.
SR Coming in from Main Street. On the opposite side if we go, let's see, we can't back up. We lived on the opposite side of the street almost across, kind of catty-cornered from the Masonic Building. And then two doors down from us your Uncle Mac had a Barber Shop in later years.
DW Right. And that was an old post office too, wasn't it?
SR Yes, well, it was a post office.
DW Right?
SR Yeah, a post office after he left. Yeah.
DW Hmm.
SR He was, he was there first. Cause he did the boy's hair the first time.
DW [Laughs]
SR I made him take his white jacket off because they were scared to death with anybody, with any one who had a white jacket.
DW [Laughs]
SR So he took his jacket off and they had no problem, because they thought he was a doctor. [Laughter] And then on down the street a couple houses where Doctor Arthur practiced. Now that was Helen Heap's father, and he, in fact he even delivered me. And he'd been around a long time. And then you came on down the street and the next building would have been the old theater. And you don't remember that. The old Delta Cardiff Theater and underneath, it was two stories, and of course I went there as a kid. The other one was only open on weekends, the one that was in Delta. This was open, you know, through the week. Oh, I use to love to go. Mr. Joe Johnson ran the video, what do you call it…
DW The movie.
SR Movie, and showed that. And some time would help him was a Mr. Whittaker, I can't think of his first name from up in Delta. But anyway, underneath was the first, the Cardiff homemakers had a little library in one corner. I don't know who was there before. Next is where Doctor Hunt first began his practice.
DW Mmm hmm. This is, this is what became Reese's Pool Hall?
SR: No.
DW No?
SR This is next to Reeses…
DW: Oh, next to the pumpkin…
SR The pool hall was there too. I'll get to that.
DW O.k., o.k.
SR He was in one end, then was Dick Reese's Pool Hall, and then was a restaurant that Ethel and Smoker Norris ran.
DW Oh. [Laughs]
SR And I can't think of what, who was with her. It was Pat Kilgore's mother and I can't think what her name was. It'll come to me after a while. They had a nice restaurant there.
DW Mmm.
SR You'd come out of the movies and go in. You could get a hamburger for a quarter.
DW [Laughs]
SR You could get a sundae for fifteen cents, you could get a coke for a nickel. A hot dog was probably ten or fifteen cents, and a meal, thirty-five cents. If you paid fifty cents, you were paying a lot.
DW [Laughs] Now, that library you were talking about, it's just been in the last month that somebody had a book that had a stamp. And I think it was actually called the Mason-Dixon Library, wasn't it?
SR I think the Cardiff Homemakers first, I mean it was a lone library that they had. You know they weren't associated with anyone.
DW O.k.
SR And then I don't know where it advanced from there, except we always said that that's where it had it's beginning. Because the next time, next thing we had was the book mobile. And that was, we didn't get that until about 1943, 4, somewhere around there. Dorothy Glackin started that. And that was the first service, library service that we had in the community. Dorothy was a wonderful librarian. She started libraries in schools and of course she had the bookmobile, and there were just several things that she was innovative with and had gotten started. Well, then they had started building libraries. They built Bel Air. The first library was in the old Methodist Church in Bel Air, near Harrison's store, there was an old Methodist Church.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR I took Carol there when she was just a little girl. It would have been about 1943.
DW [Laughs]
SR And then they built a library, and then from then it expanded. And of course I have been interested in libraries all my life, and I love to read. And eventually, I don't know how I got on the Board; I didn't know anything about it. I served twelve years on the Harford County Library Board. And while I was there, I started agitating for something in the upper end of the county. Well, I went to a capital, we had a meeting one day and they brought out this capital plan, and here was a picture of, a drawing of Harford County. And here were all these libraries they were going to build down the southern end of the county, and there was nothing up in the fourth and fifth district. And I jumped up and slammed the paper down on the table and I said "You don't have anything up here."
DW [Laughs]
SR So they said well, now they had a committee, well, we said we'd look around. Well, it took us several years before we found a place that we could have a library. We had, we tried the schools, but we were five years too late. We thought maybe we could have one next to the school, or near the school, or incorporated in the school. We were five years too late because their plans were already made.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR So anyhow, I kept agitating away, and I'd go to the council meetings, and Johnny Schaefer would say, "Must be something coming up about libraries tonight."
DW [Laughs]
SR I just kept on and on. Took us twenty-five years to get a library, but we got it finally. And it all happened almost, it was just a quirk. Eunice Silver wanted to sell this piece of property. Now that's out in Whiteford. It's a piece of property between her and the Whiteford Post Office area. And I found out about it, and I knew Frank Day, her lawyer. And I got a hold of Frank and I said, "Frank that would make a wonderful library." And of course Paul Glackin had, was the, what do ya call, realtor who had it. And I talked to Paul; well they talked to Eunice, and it took us a while. Went to the…I'll never forget going to the office; Eunice called me every morning of her life.
DW [Laughs]
SR Thinking, well aren't you going to do something? Well, you know things don't move very fast.
DW Right.
SR And I happened, I was working for the York Daily Record at the time, and use to cover the farm bureau meetings. And they were meeting down at the Blue Bell. I had gone a little early, and Charlie Anderson walked in. And he said, "Well hi Mrs. Robinson, you gotten that library up in Whiteford yet"?
DW [Laughs]
SR And I said how in the heck can we get a library in Whiteford if we can't even get ten cents to get an option on the land. He said, "What are you talking about"? I said well there's a piece of land up there that we could get, that would make a nice library if we could get, you know, the money or get… You had to go through, what's the name of that? Bill Cooper was Chairman of it, some kind of a committee, anyhow, that you had to go through. He said, "Call my office the next morning." I'm not kidding you, right hand up; I did not sleep all night long.
DW [Laughs]
SR I got up and I called his office and he turned me over to Roger Niles. And I talked to Roger and I said, "Now I'm calling Frank Day and I want you two to get together," because Frank was her lawyer. They got together and Roger says, "Well I think we can come up with some money for that." She didn't ask a big amount for it, because Bill Cooper said to me, I can't think of the name of that group that meets, that decides whether they're going to buy. But anyway, he looked at me, and he said, "You tell that woman, "Thank you for not trying to rip us off."
DW [Laughs]
SR And I'll never forget it! He got it, we got it before, because Fallston came up the same time, and they approved us, that we could go ahead and get this land and then put a, they put a trailer there.
DW Yes.
SR Well that went on for a number of years and the next thing I found out that they had taken us off the Capital Improvement Plan. The Board.
DW Mmm hmm.
SR And boy I got a group together and we started, and we just kept right on until, and we went to every meeting, and they knew we were there. Am I talking too long?
DW No, no, you're doing fine.
SR All right. They, I have to tell you this story. They a, we kept going to the Board Meetings and going to the Board Meetings. And, how'd this come about? Oh, I know. I said something to the Director, and he says, "Well we don't have any money." And I went right across the street to Habern Freeman's office and asked to see him. And we had met with him before; a group of us had gone down. And I said Habern; "They say we don't have the money for our library. And he said, "You do have your money; it's there." I went right back to the Director.
DW [Laughs]
SR And said the money is there and had been there for six months.
DW Wow!
SR And then he got, well see at that time they let the Director, I mean the Director had a lot to do with it. And he was just… I don't know why he was dragging his feet. But we did get organized. But then it was like Murphy's Law. We got, we had to take the lowest contract, you know, bid I mean.
DW Yeah.
SR And everything went wrong that could go wrong with that library. It took two years to build.
DW [Laughs]
SR But thank goodness we have it! [Laughs]
DW Yes, yes.
SR I have, I've always been of the belief that there isn't an entity of any kind that you get more money for your taxes, than you do in a library.
DW Right.
SR And the fact that it also serves from the tiniest child, even to prenatal [laughs] children before there're born, to the oldest person.
DW Right.
SR So, when you think of that, your getting, you're really getting the benefit of your tax money. I have no idea what the cost is now. It use to be, and they probably will correct me on that, but it's around fifty dollars, maybe more of your tax money that goes to libraries.
DW Mmm.
SR And I can't think of a better, better place to put your money, [laughs] your tax money.
DW Right. Well, certainly it's a good place for kids, they get educated…
SR Oh…
DW They are not out getting in trouble…
SR That's right.
DW Reduces the cost of police…
SR Everything.
DW You know, I mean it's just a big cycle.
SR Well, I organized, and I got a little help from a person in Bel Air who had had this experience, organized the Friends up here before we had the library. And we started out with the Friends of the Library, and we have raised and given, I would say, well we still have some money. We haven't given all of it. But I would say about $75,000.
DW Wow.
SR Just through our Friends, through the little, or you know the little fundraisers that we have. And we have given…now this past year we supported five programs. Summer Readings Programs cost us a thousand dollars.
DW Hmm.
SR And we can't think of anything better of a use for our money. We helped, they needed shelving, you know…This is not funded. These are things that are not funded, that the County can't give them. So, we gave, let's see, we gave five hundred, it was around five hundred for this new shelving. Plus we're also going to sponsor the Adult Reading Program this winter. So that will be another…And then every once in a while we'll come up with something. For instance we just had a, memorials made for a couple people in the community. And we have over a thousand dollars and they suggested that we get talking books and large print. Which is what we try to keep a supply in; they use a lot of them. So we'll give about fifteen hundred dollars to the Board and that will, we indicate that it's to be used on talking books and